In my last post, which I know was too long ago, I said my personal practice has been faltering. "I have a
hard time maintaining regular habits of piety and meditation, but I am
eager to set about changing that," I wrote then.
I put a lot of thought into that reality, and as a result, I have shifted gears. Rather than moving directly into ADF clergy training, I'm going to undertake the Initiate Program first. It continues the academic study that I began with the clergy preliminary work, but it also requires steady and consistent devotional, divination and meditation/trance practice, with documentation. I believe I should deepen my own spiritual dimension before presuming to lead other, and I believe the IP will be instrumental in my doing that,
Showing posts with label mental discipline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental discipline. Show all posts
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
The Daily Work
I am still challenged by the mental discipline requirement of the Dedicant Program. I've tried to cultivate a regular meditation practice but it's not easy for me. I've learned -- and this realization will be part of my essay when I finally write it -- that I really need a point of focus to keep my attention, and most forms of the 'clear your mind' sort of meditation don't really work for me.
A couple of months ago, we began holding a nightly devotional to Frigga, divided into three phases -- opening the hearth when we begin preparing dinner, an offering made when we serve it, and closing the hearth at the end of the night. I've been counting that plus weekly or so sessions with Ian Corrigan's Two Powers narration, but just this week I've adopted a new practice.
Using this text by Teo Bishop, I'm performing a solitary devotional each morning, followed by a three-rune daily divination. It guides me to focus on the trinities -- fire, well and tree and ancestors, nature spirits and deities, and then on the runes of the day. It takes only a few minutes and it's right at the start of the day. I'd like to get 2-3 months of consistency with that, and then I may be ready to write that one.
A couple of months ago, we began holding a nightly devotional to Frigga, divided into three phases -- opening the hearth when we begin preparing dinner, an offering made when we serve it, and closing the hearth at the end of the night. I've been counting that plus weekly or so sessions with Ian Corrigan's Two Powers narration, but just this week I've adopted a new practice.
Using this text by Teo Bishop, I'm performing a solitary devotional each morning, followed by a three-rune daily divination. It guides me to focus on the trinities -- fire, well and tree and ancestors, nature spirits and deities, and then on the runes of the day. It takes only a few minutes and it's right at the start of the day. I'd like to get 2-3 months of consistency with that, and then I may be ready to write that one.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Developing a Daily Practice
My religious and spiritual ideas tend much more to orthopraxy
(practice) than orthodoxy (belief), and it's been that way no matter
what religious path I've been on.
This doesn't mean that I'm great with Daily Practice - just the opposite. I find it very challenging to sustain an act until it becomes habit. I don't see that challenge to be a bad thing - in my experience, making a conscious choice to engage in some sort of daily practice and pushing through the inclination to let it slide has all sorts of spiritual and mundane benefits to it, whether that practice involves a prayer of some kind, a ritual of some sort, a pause to meditate, a daily walk, a daily divinatory reading, or whatever habit one might come up with that allows one to ground, center and focus contemplatively on where they are in connection with the universe, their gods, or the sacred in whatever form it takes for them.
Since Yule, I've begun a daily practice of centered around my "hearth" - a small shrine in the kitchen that holds a statue depicting Frige (an Anglo-Saxon goddess who is the deity of my hearth), a bell (it's a sleigh bell on a the end of a wand), an oil lamp that acts as the hearth flame, an incense holder, and a leaf shaped dish that holds offerings. Sometimes, there are additional offerings, such as flowers, a libation, chocolates...
Everyday, before the evening meal preparation begins, I chime the bell, then I light a stick of incense, use it to light the oil lamp, while saying a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to Frige.
A bit later, when I am dishing up our meal, the first portion goes into the offering dish and set on the altar with another prayer, asking that she accept her portion as a 'gift for a gift'.
Lastly, after dinner, I pray a third time, this time requesting her aid in protecting our home, and blessing it with love, and kindness to one another, and that she stay with us throughout the night - and then put out the lamp for the evening. The offering is left on the shrine until bedtime, and then set outside.
It took a good while not to feel self-conscious, or to wonder if this was a good practice or something 'silly', but that's gone away - it's my daily practice, it has become habit, and it is meaningful to me. As I contemplate Frige's qualities - organizational skills, domestic arts, managerial horsesense, being the "Keeper of the Keys" - and of the peace, I am reminded daily to take my domestic tasks seriously, reminded that I, too, can choose to act in a way that leads to peace and harmony in the home rather than sowing discord. It reminds me that the act of putting together a meal isn't jus a task to be got through, but something deeply important that is at the heart of our home.
My commitment is to do this until next Yule - but I suspect that by then the very idea of not doing it will be unthinkable to me.
Shared with Pagan Blog Project and cross-posted from The Auld Grey Mare.
This doesn't mean that I'm great with Daily Practice - just the opposite. I find it very challenging to sustain an act until it becomes habit. I don't see that challenge to be a bad thing - in my experience, making a conscious choice to engage in some sort of daily practice and pushing through the inclination to let it slide has all sorts of spiritual and mundane benefits to it, whether that practice involves a prayer of some kind, a ritual of some sort, a pause to meditate, a daily walk, a daily divinatory reading, or whatever habit one might come up with that allows one to ground, center and focus contemplatively on where they are in connection with the universe, their gods, or the sacred in whatever form it takes for them.
Since Yule, I've begun a daily practice of centered around my "hearth" - a small shrine in the kitchen that holds a statue depicting Frige (an Anglo-Saxon goddess who is the deity of my hearth), a bell (it's a sleigh bell on a the end of a wand), an oil lamp that acts as the hearth flame, an incense holder, and a leaf shaped dish that holds offerings. Sometimes, there are additional offerings, such as flowers, a libation, chocolates...
Everyday, before the evening meal preparation begins, I chime the bell, then I light a stick of incense, use it to light the oil lamp, while saying a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to Frige.
A bit later, when I am dishing up our meal, the first portion goes into the offering dish and set on the altar with another prayer, asking that she accept her portion as a 'gift for a gift'.
Lastly, after dinner, I pray a third time, this time requesting her aid in protecting our home, and blessing it with love, and kindness to one another, and that she stay with us throughout the night - and then put out the lamp for the evening. The offering is left on the shrine until bedtime, and then set outside.
It took a good while not to feel self-conscious, or to wonder if this was a good practice or something 'silly', but that's gone away - it's my daily practice, it has become habit, and it is meaningful to me. As I contemplate Frige's qualities - organizational skills, domestic arts, managerial horsesense, being the "Keeper of the Keys" - and of the peace, I am reminded daily to take my domestic tasks seriously, reminded that I, too, can choose to act in a way that leads to peace and harmony in the home rather than sowing discord. It reminds me that the act of putting together a meal isn't jus a task to be got through, but something deeply important that is at the heart of our home.
My commitment is to do this until next Yule - but I suspect that by then the very idea of not doing it will be unthinkable to me.
Shared with Pagan Blog Project and cross-posted from The Auld Grey Mare.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Pagan Every Day(?)
Teo Bishop writes compellingly here about the importance of a daily devotional practice. It's an argument I agree with, and yet find very hard to maintain.
My sense of nearness to the kindreds waxes and wanes and, perhaps unwisely, feels the farthest away when I am under stress. And I have been under stress the past few weeks, mostly due to a project at work, that has only this week mostly lifted.
I want a daily practice, or at least a weekly one. I still need to get seriously to work on developing mental discipline to fulfill the Dedicant Path requirement, but even more than that, I want to create real relationships with the kindreds. I feel that I am actually on the edge of that in a couple of cases, but my regularity is lacking.
And still, it's hard to do. It's hard to carve out a dependable time, to work around distractions, even though a simple devotional takes only 10 or 15 minutes. I do it sporadically, sometimes a couple of times in a week, sometimes only once every couple of weeks.
I frequently hear that paganism is a religion of practice more than belief, and yet, my practice falters. How does one break out of the rut?
My sense of nearness to the kindreds waxes and wanes and, perhaps unwisely, feels the farthest away when I am under stress. And I have been under stress the past few weeks, mostly due to a project at work, that has only this week mostly lifted.
I want a daily practice, or at least a weekly one. I still need to get seriously to work on developing mental discipline to fulfill the Dedicant Path requirement, but even more than that, I want to create real relationships with the kindreds. I feel that I am actually on the edge of that in a couple of cases, but my regularity is lacking.
And still, it's hard to do. It's hard to carve out a dependable time, to work around distractions, even though a simple devotional takes only 10 or 15 minutes. I do it sporadically, sometimes a couple of times in a week, sometimes only once every couple of weeks.
I frequently hear that paganism is a religion of practice more than belief, and yet, my practice falters. How does one break out of the rut?
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
The Squib Who Thought He Was A Lighthouse
I'm continuing to work steadily on the dedicant documentation, a little at a time. In last few days I've written the last of my high day essays. Mental discipline continues to be a challenge, but I'm persevering.
I've been involved in a long-running debate with an old friend about the theories of a French intellectual named Rene Girard. Girard was originally a literary critic, but he's tried to apply his theories to religion, and has gained a small but devoted following as an idiosyncratic Christian apologist.
In his books, notably "Violence and the Sacred," he argues that the myths of pagan cultures reflect an unending cycle of violence reflected in the sacrifical practices of the people. Cultures, Girard believes, begin with a "founding murder" of a scapegoat. In the effort to cover up the murder, out of guilt, the victim becomes deified. Eventually the actual murder is forgotten, re-enacted unconsciously in rituals which have no power to permanently end the social tensions brought on by what Girard terms mimetic desire -- wanting based on seeing what others want.
Christianity, Girard argues, is different. The death of Jesus "reveals the innocence" of the scapegoat, rendering pagan religions inoperative (somehow.) In order to make this argument, Girard has to dismiss the traditional interpretation of the death of Jesus as a sacrifice to God the Father and instead argues for a "non-sacrificial reading" in which the crucifixion is really about demonstrating that the person murdered is in fact innocent. (This is why I described him as "idiosyncratic.")
I have ably, if I say so myself, argued against Girard, demonstrating that he doesn't understand the pagan view of sacrifice and doesn't really address actual myth -- his examples of myth largely come from Greek dramas by Sophocles and Euripides.
Girard doesn't seem to have a lot of critics -- instead, he's apparently admired within the small cult that's grown up around his work and ignored by almost everyone else. He does have at least one vocal critic, however, another French intellectual named Rene Pommier. In an essay titled "Rene Girard: The Squib Who Thought He Was A Lighthouse," Pommier deftly dismantles many of Girard's conceits. (A squib is "a small firework, consisting of a tube or ball filled with powder, that burns with a hissing noise terminated usually by a slight explosion," or "a firecracker broken in the middle so that it burns with a hissing noise but does not explode.")
One of the best passages (Google-translated from the French and cleaned up some by me):
In all the exchange -- which appears to be winding down, though it could resume -- has changed no minds but has helped me sharpen my own arguments and deepen my knowledge.
(By the way, thanks to John Michael Greer, Christopher Plaisance and Alaric Albertsson for offering ideas along the way.)
I've been involved in a long-running debate with an old friend about the theories of a French intellectual named Rene Girard. Girard was originally a literary critic, but he's tried to apply his theories to religion, and has gained a small but devoted following as an idiosyncratic Christian apologist.
In his books, notably "Violence and the Sacred," he argues that the myths of pagan cultures reflect an unending cycle of violence reflected in the sacrifical practices of the people. Cultures, Girard believes, begin with a "founding murder" of a scapegoat. In the effort to cover up the murder, out of guilt, the victim becomes deified. Eventually the actual murder is forgotten, re-enacted unconsciously in rituals which have no power to permanently end the social tensions brought on by what Girard terms mimetic desire -- wanting based on seeing what others want.
Christianity, Girard argues, is different. The death of Jesus "reveals the innocence" of the scapegoat, rendering pagan religions inoperative (somehow.) In order to make this argument, Girard has to dismiss the traditional interpretation of the death of Jesus as a sacrifice to God the Father and instead argues for a "non-sacrificial reading" in which the crucifixion is really about demonstrating that the person murdered is in fact innocent. (This is why I described him as "idiosyncratic.")
I have ably, if I say so myself, argued against Girard, demonstrating that he doesn't understand the pagan view of sacrifice and doesn't really address actual myth -- his examples of myth largely come from Greek dramas by Sophocles and Euripides.
Girard doesn't seem to have a lot of critics -- instead, he's apparently admired within the small cult that's grown up around his work and ignored by almost everyone else. He does have at least one vocal critic, however, another French intellectual named Rene Pommier. In an essay titled "Rene Girard: The Squib Who Thought He Was A Lighthouse," Pommier deftly dismantles many of Girard's conceits. (A squib is "a small firework, consisting of a tube or ball filled with powder, that burns with a hissing noise terminated usually by a slight explosion," or "a firecracker broken in the middle so that it burns with a hissing noise but does not explode.")
One of the best passages (Google-translated from the French and cleaned up some by me):
But where Girard was probably at the farthest bounds of the presumption and arrogance, it was when he tried to explain to Christians that only he could shed light on the essence of their religion. If he was, in effect, converted late in life, he was soon to discover he was the first Christian to have really understood what constituted Christianity and the deeper meaning of the Gospels. "The Christians,” he says, “did not understand the true originality of the Gospels." To all those who have been taught that Christ sacrificed himself on the cross to redeem mankind from original sin, a sacrifice unceasingly renewed in the celebration of Mass, Rene Girard is not afraid to say that this is a huge mistake, the most phenomenal mistake of all time: "This sacrificial reading of the passion [...] must be criticized as the most paradoxical misunderstanding and the most colossal of all history, and at the same time the most revealing of the radical inability of humanity to understand its own violence, even when it is served in the most explicit fashion.”
But fortunately he hastens to reassure them, telling them that, thanks to his theories, the Christian revelation is now unambiguous, and that for the first time henceforth and forever, it became perfectly clear, complete and consistent: "They are,” he says, “all the great canonical dogmas, I am convinced that a non-sacrificial reading makes it intelligible by articulating a more coherent way than has been done so far. " And furthermore, "In light of this [non-sacrificial] reading, one can finally explain the idea that the Gospels are of their own historical action, the elements whose presence seems contrary to the evangelical spirit. Again, this is the results we're going to judge the reading that is beginning to sketch. By refusing the definition of sacrificial love we end up reading, the most direct, the simplest, clearest and the only really consistent, one that can integrate all the themes of the Gospel into a seamless whole.”
Girard was born on December 25. It can not be a coincidence. How can we not see a clear signal sent by divine providence, to make us understand that Girard was meant to complement and refine the message that She had, over two thousand years, its charge only son to bring to men? It should therefore seems to me that now all Christians should celebrate as eagerly, or with even greater ardor, the birth of Rene Girard along with that of Christ. Further that the Pope convoke as soon as possible a new ecumenical council, which could finally integrate into the Christian revelation the essential contribution of Girard's theories. And, instead of putting on the altar beside the Bible the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas as was done at the Council of Trent, the Church should, of course, put the complete works of René Girard . Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit would do well to suggest to Benedict XVI to make Girard a Doctor of the Church.
In all the exchange -- which appears to be winding down, though it could resume -- has changed no minds but has helped me sharpen my own arguments and deepen my knowledge.
(By the way, thanks to John Michael Greer, Christopher Plaisance and Alaric Albertsson for offering ideas along the way.)
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Meditations
I have been dragging my feet on moving ahead with the DP for a while now. I've been writing my essays on the high days and our celebrations of them at Cedarlight Grove, and I've done two of the three required book reports, but I have not been diligent on anything else about it.
There are number of reasons for this, and its easy enough (and true enough) to claim busyness, but that's only part of it. The main reason is that I'm afraid of the mental discipline requirement.
I'm sure I'm not the only person who has tackled this program that has found five months of regular meditation practice to be intimidating. If I were a betting man, I would bet that it's the number one reason people start the DP and don't finish it. At the same time, I can't argue that it shouldn't be there because I understand why it matters.
So I am taking a new run at it, starting today. I'm planning to try at first for just five minutes of complete breathing (inhale for a count of 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4) and general quieting of mind. When I can do that, I'll starting working on the Two Powers using my recording of Ian Corrigan's narration, and assuming I become comfortable with that, I'll seek more techniques.
Meanwhile, I will work on the essays that aren't tied to events – attending a rite or reading a book – and try to have them complete over that five months as well. My hope is that after five months of regular mental discipline I will have gained enough experience to find it valuable and continue, which is obviously part of the point of the requirement.
There are number of reasons for this, and its easy enough (and true enough) to claim busyness, but that's only part of it. The main reason is that I'm afraid of the mental discipline requirement.
I'm sure I'm not the only person who has tackled this program that has found five months of regular meditation practice to be intimidating. If I were a betting man, I would bet that it's the number one reason people start the DP and don't finish it. At the same time, I can't argue that it shouldn't be there because I understand why it matters.
So I am taking a new run at it, starting today. I'm planning to try at first for just five minutes of complete breathing (inhale for a count of 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4) and general quieting of mind. When I can do that, I'll starting working on the Two Powers using my recording of Ian Corrigan's narration, and assuming I become comfortable with that, I'll seek more techniques.
Meanwhile, I will work on the essays that aren't tied to events – attending a rite or reading a book – and try to have them complete over that five months as well. My hope is that after five months of regular mental discipline I will have gained enough experience to find it valuable and continue, which is obviously part of the point of the requirement.
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