Last night after my bed time trance I tried Dream incubation and repeated over and over that I would have a dream that would give me an insight into being a priestess, a heart dream, a spirit dream, a power dream, a good dream. And every time I woke up I would repeat it til I drifted off. But the bits and pieces of dream I remember don't feel inspiring or seem to have that much energy around them. They don't seem to relate to a vision. I'll try it again the next couple of nights. Sometimes it takes several nights to work.
This morning I am feeling somewhat dispirited. It's hard to get moving. My heart pounds a little harder doing the simplest things. It rained last night. It was a nice rain, not really a downpour but made friendly pitter-patter noises on the tent. It didn't cool down as much as I thought it might although I am a little reluctant to leave the tent this morning with such a gray and windy day. And while I realize I still have 3 days (counting today) left I am beginning to feel like I won't receive a vision. Jack said it will be what it will be and not to worry about it. It could be that it would just be little insights that happen and not a big vision (so I was hoping for a big one, oh well). And I have had moments of insight, periods of peace and pleasure, challenges every day because of all the insects (It's a good thing that I have overcome much of my insect phobia or this would have been one long nightmare.) and I am still here.
Well all my moods are shifting quite a bit. Earlier I could barely make myself go brush my teeth. But after dancing the Cauldron I feel pretty good. I dance and sang then sat to talk a while. I was thinking of Hecate and old age. I began to remember my grandmother in the nursing home. She died a few years ago. I began to cry. I'm not sure that I cried for her when it happened as I don't remember doing so. And I thought about old age and going into a nursing home. I don't want that to happen to my parents or to Tom and I. If we have enough money then for retirement there could be other options. A scary thought as we don't have much put away for that.
That is an issue for some of the Priesthood as well, who have put 20-30 years in the church and have no pension and no money for retirement. Some of them have children reaching college age. What will they do?
Anyway I think the most meaningful part of my vision quest so far is talking with the Lady of the Cauldron at the Cross Roads. I sing and dance for Her, and I tell Her of the matters that I need help with. I have a lot of questions and very few answers but after being there for a while I feel more at peace even without the answers and despite the insects. The sun began to peek out while I was there and at the moment it is a beautiful day, mostly sunny but partly cloudy. It is warming up but there is a cool very breezy wind. The leaves make incredible patterns of light and shadow as they dance with the wind. And they sing to me as the wind plays with them. It drowns out almost all the machine noise except for the airplanes. I am happy and smiling now.
The other day it popped into my head that the face in the Cauldron needed an eye, a pretty eye, so I will get one for Her. And I've found myself thinking about the flowers to plant at the quarters. I had thought to start at the east and work around but today, sitting there, I realized I need to start with the west. And as my mind wandered I started to think about Juno renewing her maidenhead, and the Crone becoming the Maiden as the New Moon becomes a crescent, and the Rebirth of the Goddess as a theme for a ritual.
The idea came to me that through pollution, old growth logging, using up natural resources, toxic dumps, the hole in the ozone layer, etc. we have prematurely aged the Goddess. She needs to be renewed, healed, and reborn. Hecate is both the crone, Goddess grown old, and the midwife. She has three forms, one of whom is young, I believe. So I have an inkling of an idea, just the first stirrings, an image of three women standing with their backs to the Cauldron, and invoking Hecate Triformis for the Rebirthing of the Goddess. And invoking several other deity forms to honor and gift the new born Goddess: a sea god to gift her with the pure waters and abundant life of the sea; and air goddess to gift her with music carried on sweet crisp breezes of clean smelling air; a fire goddess to gift her with the passionate fires of the earth and clean energy; and an earth god to gift her with the abundant, healthy variety of plants and animals; Eris to gift her with the chaotic power of possibility. And thinking of Eris made me think of sending actual invitations to the deities and guests. In fairy tales many invitations are sent out to the christening of a new baby but some troublesome fairy is forgotten who shows up and curses the infant instead. So Eris should especially get an invitation:) Anyway that is 8 deities but I think 9 would be more appropriate, three threes, but don't know who at this point.
This is really just the barebones of the ritual. I don't have any ideas yet about how the rebirth would take place, and the spot by the Cauldron won't hold more than about 30 people. If it were raining I don't know how we would manage it but it feels like such a juicy idea that there must be some way to pull it off. I'm already thinking about who could play what role. Julie makes a really great Eris, though. I have a dream cast as it were in mind but it is unlikely that I could get them as several of them are from CA. Ah well.
A beautiful little moth just landed on my tent screen door. It is black with a white strip on the upper wings. It turned around and around, dancing for me. And the winds picked up while I was writing out my ritual ideas. The tent moves with the breeze and even in here I can feel it. I came in to rest as I was tired after dancing the Cauldron. Goddess, what an incredibly beautiful day!
Damn, I just found another tick. At least it wasn't attached. But I never would have noticed it if it wasn't moving. It was the size of the point of a needle. There is no way I can expect to find them all as I have a lot of freckles, little moles, and skin tags as I got older, let alone a decent head of hair to look through. I can't wait to go home and take a shower, wash my hair, and get in the hot tub, not that this will get rid of the ticks but I will feel better about it and who knows it is theoretically possible that an hour in chlorinated water could kill a tick. If not, don't tell me. Oops, found another tiny one, I think. Can't quite see it well enough to be sure. Luckily Tom is coming back with the pipe and Salvia for me to try again so he can take it off.
Tom was here with more fresh Juice and the Salvia. We sat out by the Cauldron and I got a higher dose than last time but not quite enough, I think. I had a fleeting vision of a white "clapboard" house with a porch and a railing. (Except that everything was actually pink but I knew that it was supposed to be white.) There was a narrow alleyway just off the porch with another building on the other side of the alley. A woman said something from over by the house but out of my direct sight. I had the feeling that she was black and this was in the past. But that was it except for the pink background with golden flames that rolled around and made patterns.
I seemed to see the trick of it though. It was patterns in the visual field of my closed eyes that were distorted and colored. My eyes, moving to follow the objects, produced motion and I interpreted the pattern to create sense. Basically I think it works like divination techniques that rely on reading the patterns. Perhaps it also enhances the pattern recognition ability. A pretty neat "trick", though, if that is really what happens.
We took a walk down the path. I seem to like to get up and move after the intense part wears off. Everything has a newness, a freshness about it that is quite charming. A fawn startled and ran off. I thought its mother must be nearby so we turned around and went in the other direction. I really don't like to scare the mama deer.
Tom said I had a lot more energy than last time he was here. It's funny considering how low energy I was this morning. My palm chakras are hot now and there are some very cool patterns in my skin. (I just looked at my arms now the week after the vision quest as I type the entries in. I wondered if the patterns were visible normally and just looked more interesting on the Salvia but I can't see them at all.)
As I was tending the fire a Scarlet Tanager came and perched on a tree very close to me. They are such beautiful birds with red bodies and black wings. I saw that this one had white markings as well. So I sang the beauty song to it. And it hopped around from branch to branch overhead. Once it went near the top of the tree but a hawk flew overhead and it came back down to a lower branch. And I realized that it didn't really matter if I didn't get a vision that jumped up and down shouting vision. I sang to a Scarlet Tanager and a deer, and they stayed to listen. I sang to a raccoon who promptly ran away, a critic, I guess. I am surrounded by beauty. Beauty fills my heart and soul. What more is needed? Yet my dancing, singing, and meditations at the Cauldron produced a good ritual idea, purpose, and shape, not all the details, a gift from the Lady of the Cauldron at the Cross Roads.
Around the BelSummer fire one of my nestmates said that Phoenix gets songs and she gets sales pitches. I get rituals.
I am glad that I did this but I will be glad when it's over too. Tom and I have a "date" right after my shower on my birthday morning, Wednesday June 13th. I will be 50. This is certainly an interesting way to turn 50.
I am seriously annoyed. I didn't bring a needle so I had to call Tom to come dig the mouth parts of a tick out of the back of my knee. Like I've said before this has been challenging. I debated letting it go for the 2 days left but I'd rather not bring home an infected leg if I can avoid it. I've also taken enough ticks off so far that I'd better consider getting a Lymes' test. In WI supposedly, about 30% of the ticks in the more infested areas carry it but it takes about 24-28 hours of attachment, usually, to transmit it.
Copyright © 2001 Kyril Oakwind