Contemplative Inquiry

January 5, 2015

POEM: WINTER IS …

Beverley Price is my fifth poet from the collection ‘Moon Poets: Six Pagan poets’ published by Moon Books and edited by Trevor Greenfield, and she continues a northern winter theme. Beverley “is a weaver of dark prose and poetry, dreamer of Gothic imagery, cat lover and nature worshipper. Her work deals with the bitter fact that love is not always chocolate boxes and roses mixed in with the imagery of her pagan roots and love of mythology”. The collection as a whole also includes work by Martin Pallot, Tiffany Chaney, Lorna Smithers, Robin Herne and Romany Rivers.

Winter Is …

Winter, the trees stand bare.

Snow covers the ground.

A secret message, just for me to share.

It died on the breeze, not making a sound.

Blunted by the whitewash.

Reinforcing my desire.

Whisper leaves, the story told.

The urge to feel and enquire.

The winter wolves are coming.

I would love to be there.

And round about, the waste of time.

This winter is usual and rare.

Now, winter time is full of light.

Winter had become my lover.

Hot with your love, and summer to discover.

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January 3, 2015

FAIRY TALES, ANIMAL HELPERS AND ‘THE PROBLEM OF GOOD’

Recently I came across an article about fairy tales, which included brief reviews of several books and some general observations. The author was Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Communion. Below, and without further comment from me, I include an extract which caught my attention.

“There is a clear strand of social resistance running through much of the old material, a strand repeatedly weakened, in not denied, by nervous rewriting. But this depends on the conviction underlying all this sort of storytelling: that the world is irrationally generous as well as unfairly hurtful. There is no justice but there is a potentially hopeful side to anarchy, and we cannot tell in advance where we will find solidarity. Or, to put it in more theological terms, there is certainly a problem of evil in the way the world goes. Yet there is also a ‘problem of good’ – utterly unexpected and unscripted resources in unlikely places. And at the very least this suggests to the audience for the tale a more speculatively hopeful attitude to the non-human environment as well as to other people. Just be careful how you treat a passing fox, hedgehog or thrush.”

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January 1, 2015

POEM: WOLF VOICE

Happy New Year to all readers of this post! My very best wishes for 2015. I offer a poem by Martin Pallot, a wolf’s life-world in the northern winter.

Martin is my fourth poet from the collection ‘Moon Poets: Six Pagan poets’ published by Moon Books and edited by Trevor Greenfield. Martin has been writing poetry since the early 1980s, mainly inspired by Nature and his pagan beliefs. He admires the early poets and story tellers and the way they engaged the ear, as well as the mind of their audience, and encourages people to say his poetry as well as just reading it. The collection as a whole also includes work by Tiffany Chaney, Lorna Smithers, Robin Herne, Romany Rivers and Beverley Price.

Wolf Voice

Wolf, howling to the moon,

The wind hears your words,

The earth feels your voice,

Sending out your spirit sound,

Calling to the great She wolf

Who shakes the stars from her fur.

Loping in the light of her one great eye,

Silver, shadowing the pack path,

Snow, scented by the passing prey,

Guides you on your killing way.

The trackless whiteness,

Sculpted by spirits of the air,

Into shape of deer and bison.

These insubstantial ghosts,

A pulsating presence in your

Preternatural eye.

When the kill is made,

The pack song rises,

To thank the She Wolf

For her gift of life,

To the den of generations.

And the moon,

Resting on a bed

Of winter branches,

Smiles, to hear

The voice of Wolf.

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December 29, 2014

‘CELEBRATE … MORE THAN’: SHARING A PRACTICE

Earlier in December I shared ‘Awen space’, a Druid contemplative practice from my local group. Today I’m sharing something from my solo morning practice. It’s a set of statements that originally grew out of a traditional ‘who am I?’ inquiry but have now morphed into something else. They are partly a means of scanning and personal review – and partly a celebration or even re-enchantment of identity, supporting a gradual shift in my experienced centre of gravity.

The specific statements may look fixed but in practice they are in process: they shift and evolve over time. My rule of thumb is that they have to describe experiences I live and embody, or have at least touched into. I can borrow other people’s language, but I can’t use anything here on a purely liturgical or aspirational basis. I find this a dynamic and valuable way of working, I think largely because tailored to my emergent experience and understanding. If taken off the shelf, as a formula, these statements might not have had so much power. I suspect that this is a form of practice that has to be customised by the individual practitioner to work well, despite (or even because of) its transpersonal direction.

I celebrate my body and my senses – and I am more than my body and my senses.

I celebrate my life energy – and I am more than my life energy.

I celebrate my feelings, thoughts and images – and I am more than these.

I celebrate my everyday self-sense and the web of story it weaves – and I am more than that everyday self-sense.

I am the song in the heart; I am the healer in the heart; I am the wisdom in the heart.

I am the space inside the breath, and the stillness in that space.

Living presence, in a field of living presence.

Already enough and already at home. Awen.

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December 26, 2014

UNCONQUERED SUN

Yesterday’s post from the Antinous for Everybody blog,

Antinous for Everybody

The obscure, mysterious Mother

bears the radiant, obvious Son.

He is glorious in His self-giving,

triumphant sacrifice, but She

is the necessary ground

of His being and of ours.

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December 24, 2014

POEM: CIRCLE OF THE SOUL

A third poet from the collection ‘Moon Poets: Six Pagan poets’ published by Moon Books and edited by Trevor Greenfield. Tiffany Chaney is a poet and artist residing in North Carolina. Her poetry collection Between Blue and Grey won the 2013 Mother Vine Festival Award for Best in poetry. Tiffany can be found on http://www.tiffanychaney.com/

The collection as a whole also includes work by Lorna Smithers, Robin Herne, Romany Rivers, Martin Pallot and Beverley Price.

Circle of the Soul

Wake,

wake the witness,

silent Sulis

of the pond.

Pretend the nameless

are named.

Pretend the formless

are framed.

Wake,

wake the witness.

Wait,

until it is your turn

of the wheel.

Satiate

the self with

the making of souls,

until having played

pretend you can fall

asleep again.

Wake, and witness,

so we may recall.

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December 22, 2014

GOOD WILL

Dissolving into the dark, in a deeply receptive state, I find myself entertaining the word ‘will’, which soon morphs into ‘good will’.

Midwinter is traditionally a season of good will. I notice that I do feel largely at peace in my personal world, though distressed by many aspects of the bigger picture. Right now I’m experiencing a state of good will and I’d like to offer my good will to anyone who reads this post.

I’m also thinking about ‘will’, including good will, in another way. After the stasis, the turn. The seed of the turn is in the stasis; an awareness and anticipation of movement even in the moment when the sun seems at rest. A part of me is already looking forward, throwing my imagination before me, consciously willing, crafting intent.

This year my Contemplative Druidry book began to map out some potentials for contemplative practice based in Druidry, as seen by the book’s contributors, and the Contemplative Druid Events blog on www.contemplativedruidevents.tumblr.com is a vehicle to set out what we are offering. There will be more to come – mostly emphasising half day sessions and one-day ‘contemplative days’. Whilst this activity is growing, I want to work more deeply at mapping possible relationships between the contemplative aspect of spirituality and its ritual and magical aspects (however defined) and its ethical (and by extension political) aspects. My starting point is that they all involve the issue of where we choose to put our attention, and how we enact and sustain our choices intentionally. ‘Will’ is a key term, and what we mean by will is a key inquiry.

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December 17, 2014

ELAINE KNIGHT – ESOTERIC ART AT I:MAGE

This post is about the esoteric art of my partner Elaine Knight, and in particular her work as artist-in-residence for the I:MAGE 2014 held in October/November this year. Elaine writes:

I want to thank Robert Ansell and FULGUR ESOTERICA for the vision and creation of I:MAGE and the opportunity to be artist in residence during I:MAGE 2014. http://fulgur.co.uk/

I:MAGE 2014 explored what it means to communicate with spirits through art. It sought to glimpse a unifying theme across different esoteric practices. I had been commissioned to produce a talismanic piece for the journal Abraxas and I used my I:MAGE residency to do this.

Here are the words given to me by my some of my fellow travellers with unfamiliar spirits at I:MAGE 2014.

MAGIC MAGIC MAGIC WILL FIRE EVOLVE WHITE FIRE CELEBRATING WOMENS WORK PERSONAL SHINING BLUE OLD COMMUNITY HISTORY COMMUNALITY MODERN OUTPOURING BLUE CAPTIVATING EYEOPENING EXCITING MAGICAL LAYERED CHROMATIC MANIFESTATION BLOT NUMINOUS OTHERNESS ENCHANTING ILLUMINATING CROSSROADS INTRIGUING EXHILARATING TRANSFORMATIONAL PINPOINT SQUARE IMAGINATIVE VISCERAL TRANSCENDANT NORSE FAMILIAR CRENELLATION POTENTIAL DESERT SKULL

48 words.

A mere homeopathic sample from the various throngs of people who attended the I:MAGE event over these two weeks.

9 circles for these words and the central circle contains the I:MAGE bind rune.

The 9 circles are a homage to the nine worlds of Norse mythology.

The spirit of I:MAGE is a wonderful picture taken by Robert Ansell’s co curator Livia Filotico and used with her permission in the the arms of the equal and balanced cross.

I sought to gather and unify in the creation of my talismanic design generated by the event.

The Cross and the Circle.

The nine circles.

Energised from the four directions with the spirit of I:MAGE.

Gifted words to the power of three and one Rune to bind them.

Here is the heiros gamos, spirit and matter combine, each fertilises the other.

Recently I lit five candles to sit and contemplate in the fading light of a midwinter day. This arrangement was an echo of this talisman’s design.

The Concept

http://fulgur.co.uk/image/concept/

My Proposal

Here too is a link to pages 118-119 in the exhibition catalogue which explains a bit about me and what I am doing on this residency.

http://issuu.com/fulguresoterica/docs/image_2014/119?e=6507208/9770393

My dedicated residency websitewww.image2014twus.tumblr.com

My art blog at http://elaineknight.tumblr.com/

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December 16, 2014

POEM: WEPWAWET

Another poem from the collection ‘Moon Poets: Six Pagan poets’ published by Moon Books and edited by Trevor Greenfield. This one is by Robin Herne, “educator, poet, storyteller, artist, dog-owner and Druid”, whose passion for mythologies extends beyond the Celtic world to the ancient Greek and (as in this poem) Egyptian cultures. Robert’s public blog can be found at http://roundtheherne.blogspot.co.uk/

The collection as a whole also includes work by Lorna Smithers, Tiffany Chaney, Romany Rivers, Martin Pallot and Beverley Price.

Wepwawet

Awaken in peace

Beloved of the sun.

Awaken in peace

Follower of the moon.

Desert wanderer

Maker of tracks

In the pathless wastes

Grey light in a red land.

The door is bolted to me

Confined within my mind.

Opener of the ways,

Unlock what I cannot.

Let me ride besides you

In the barque of Re,

Worlds open before us.

Danger abounds, my soul yearns!

Howling in the darkness,

I shiver to your hot breath.

Let me be open, let me be open

And live, let me not sleep.

Robin Herne writes: “the Egyptian deity Wepwawet is known as the Opener of the Ways, and stands at the head of the sun god’s ship unlocking the doors that lead into Dwat, the Underworld, as the sun goes down in the west, and opening the doors back into the land of the living as the sun rises in the East. Establishing Egyptian metre is difficult owing to the uncertainty over precisely how words should be pronounced. However, surviving examples of poetry make use of frequently repeated phrases, much like musical refrains.”

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December 15, 2014

THE MYSTIC SENSE

In his book on Zen Paganism (1), Tom Swiss has a chapter called The Mystic Sense. He includes Mystic, a poem by D.H. Lawrence.

They call all experiences of the

senses mystic, when the

experience is considered.

So an apple becomes mystic

when I taste in it

the summer and the snows, the

wild welter of earth

and the insistence of the sun.

Swiss notes, “one specific, wonderful deep type of beauty comes … from the perception of a relationship between our immediate subjective experience and the broader world”. He adds that depending on our social conditioning and religious training we may come to conceptualise this in terms like ‘cosmic consciousness’, ‘the presence of the divine’, ‘the perception of emptiness’, a feeling of ‘oneness with the universe’, or of ‘sacredness’ or an experience of ‘no-mind’. They are all expressions of the mystical sense, and we have entered a period in which we can let go of any residual belief that this sense is a rare possession, or the exclusive province of a few spiritual specialists and champions.

The way we make meaning and find a language for such experiences may still be heavily conditioned by culture and still be used to justify the truth of dogmas that have in reality “only provided a filter” and “determined what color glasses” we are wearing when we “behold the Clear Light”. But behold it we do, in many different ways, and “with practice we can develop this sense”. Indeed we can “even manage to perceive the mystical experience from multiple perspectives, to swap the glasses for a couple of different colors”. In this context, Swiss reminds us that “this is one of the goals of ceremonial magic, as practised by occultists and Pagans” and not at all confined to still, meditative states.

Swiss, Tom (2013) Why Buddha touched the earth: Zen Paganism for the 21^st. century Stafford, UK: Megalithica books

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