Poetry for the Esbat: Bliss Moon, 2016

Lunar Devotional.
A Resh K'eljesh member.
Masterfully captured by my friend/charge/muse Z.

Moon!

Lady, slow down!

It is January... so many plans, so much to do on my Huge-Ass-List.
But it is a sprawling splatter of creativity & that pleases me. 
It is the Bliss of the Create-Thing. 
It is a Winter Thing.

If it is possible to suffer from excessive inspiration, this may be my affliction.


As I return to my journal Word-Place here in the ether, I see that I have missed many messages from my people. For this I am very sorry. I seem not to have received any notifications. Can we just blame it on Mercury Retrograde? 


In this current create-phase, I find myself a little without words. So maybe just pictures this time:

Luna, my ever-muse.

Sophia, #89. A recent muse.

Charging a project.

A finished project. Sort of.

Project detail.

An old friend who assists with many projects.

Creatrix.
Curiously marked by the Moon.

Project in progress. Many layers, years to come.

Create-space.

Learning, feeding, growing from tenuous dynamics.

Project in progress.

Needful things for tricky business.

Project-vision born from necessity.

And of course, the POETRY.

This Esbat, I take a piece published in Poetry Magazine in December, 1992. Written by poet May Sarton, I think it says it all: 

"Bliss" by May Sarton as published in the
December 1992 edition of Poetry Magazine.

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.

For the Files: Summer Solstice 2015 (In poor quality photos, mostly.)

Solstice. 

Right.

There were simple plans which became larger & larger.
And I had my part(s).

Then came the Fire, to simplify everything, I reckon.

And the only thing to do after all the Big Plans were wiped away was to dance.

So dance we did.

And we said to one another, over & over as we built this thing, "We can do this anywhere, anytime we want. This is an Offering, after all."

And that is true, because we danced in a different bioregion, in a different town, with a different set of spectators, at a different time, on a different day, for a different gathering, on a different substrate in a different configuration, 
With a most difficult sound system named Pancho,
And a disappointingly difficult audience,
And without a doubt I was not at my technical best,
And we didn't even remember to get photos,
And some would say that even our thunder was stolen in the end...

But we could do it all again, anywhere, anytime we want.

It is an Offering, after all.

Public Animas Ceremony Part 6: Offerings. (More? Really?)

Continued lessons from the Public Animas Ceremony: An Invitation to Passion.


Back to the business of documenting the Summer Solstice Ceremony -- no doubt with further interruption as life continues & other things also demand a voice...

Once I reach the point when this chronicle is complete, I will set all the pieces in a separate place in this blog where they can be easily accessed. I'm sure that once they are collated, so to speak, they will make more sense to someone wanting to use this as a model.

offering |ˈôf(ə)ri ng; äf-|nouna thing offered, esp. as a gift or contribution : animals as sacrificial offerings.• a thing produced or manufactured for entertainment or sale :Hollywood's latest offerings for the European market.• a contribution, esp. of money, to a church.• a thing offered as a religious sacrifice or token of devotion. -- Apple Dictionary

Animas Ceremony Officiants with
Floral & Fungal Offerings. See also
Art Eggs in background.

Offerings. Just who or what exactly do they serve? How do we classify them? Or, as I like to ask, should we? I believe that the effort of creating & providing ceremony can be an offering in itself. That is, some ceremonies are just fancy packaging for countless smaller offerings. The Invitation to Passion ceremony in its entirety was really one juicy, oversized offering -- the kind you for which get a pilot car and banners -- for our gods, the spirits & for our people. 

A brief aside: Sometimes I get the sense that humans who practice modern forms of animism forget the human-human side of relationship. Folks get wrapped up in summoning spirits, communing with corvids or talking with trees & take their relationships with other humans for granted (perhaps even as obligatory). Being a human animal is being part of the human social system (at least marginally) & being human is necessary to our part in other animistic relationships. In other words, don't deny who you are & don't forget your kin. Tend to your relationships.


Back to the subject at hand. Offerings, in this particular ceremony provided several important functions:

• The offerings served their most conventional function as gratitude gifts & enticement for the spirits of Passion & their associated entities, in the context of the invocation.
• The offerings served as a mechanism for self-expression & social bonding by providing opportunities to create art-objects together in groups & the company of others.
• The offerings, as aesthetic elements, created atmosphere for the ceremony environment.
• The offerings amplified the ceremonial experience by providing a multi-sensory adventure & reinforcing the symbolism, primary themes & intent of the ceremony.

Our offerings, in addition to the Art Bowls already discussed at length, included (but I am sure I will forget some):

Offerings: Eighty-ish Art Eggs

• Art Eggs: Eighty or so hollow hen's eggs blown over the course of several months & then hand decorated & charged/blessed/imbued during a gathering over dinner, drinks & discussion of Passion (or Star Trek, or whatever other rabbit holes). These eggs were placed in the central Officiant's bowl & poured onto the sand to be trampled into the circle during the dance. These eggs captured the eye & imagination, gave a gentle clacking to the close of the ceremony & gave an irresistible crunch underfoot.

Animas Ceremony Officiants with Floral Offerings
Photo credit HPS CC.

• Florals & Fungals: Boxes & boxes of dried flowers & fungi were collected from family gatherings, public rites of passage ceremonies, household shrines, funerals, florist friends, etc. The flowers were used as offerings in four of the Officiants bowls & also the containers carried by two of the dancers for Fire Offerings. They were also abundantly distributed across the ceremonial area & ecstatic dance circle. The florals added to the visual, aromatic & tactile atmosphere & contributed to at least one improvisational ritual.

Dancer's Floral & Fungal offerings for
Animas Ceremony: An Invitation to Passion.
Photo credit HPS CC.

Dancer's Floral & Fungal offerings for
Animas Ceremony: An Invitation to Passion.
Photo credit HPS CC.

Additional baskets of Floral offerings used throughout the evening.

• Home Brew & Cakes: A Lychee Cider was brewed specifically for this event. It was used by two dancers as Fire Offerings while the remainder of the cornelius keg was shared with the community as refreshment. We baked several Chocolate Chipotle cakes, some of which (I hope) were offered to the fire, most of which fueled the revelry & fed hungry dancers. In bear country, we must be sensible -- offerings made on the ground must be limited to things which will not serve as an attractant to our Ursidae neighbors. Thusly, the food in this ceremony was restricted to the fire & our bellies. Food & drink, are of course, traditional/old school offerings which please the spirits, our senses & satisfy the human body in numerous ways.

• Music & Dance: The music, which was carefully collected & arranged by our DJ Magus, has already been discussed in detail in Trust Your People: The Magus (DJ, that is). The dance, thoughtfully choreographed by our teacher & the troupe has also already been discussed in Trust Your People: The Choreographer. My point in mentioning them here is to stress the point that these too were offerings, the dance being perhaps the central or key offering for the entire ceremony. Both served to please the spirits, create atmosphere, facilitate a sensory shift & allow for self-expression, among other things.

Resh K'eljesh making a Dance Offering during
Animas Ceremony: An Invitation to Passion.
Photo credit PCC AK Facebook Page.

• Poetry: Poetry was recited by the Officiants during the ceremonial Invoc/Evoc/Invit-ation. Each Officiant carefully selected their personal Offering-of-Words. In my opinion, this was very likely the most potent & moving portion of the ceremony (although I am sure some may argue that the dance was a fair contender). The poems spoke volumes about each individual & their relationship to Passion. In this way, they were presenting themselves very personally & with vulnerability, before the spirits & our people. Obviously, like the music & dance, the poetry was presented to please the spirits & allow for self-expression, as well as reinforce the symbolism, primary themes & intent of the ceremony. At the risk of receiving further messages to the complaints department, I will present the sacred poetry in a separate post as an appendix to this Offerings post.

• Incense: Finally, let us not forget the primal olfactory. Among the most ancient & widespread of offerings, incense is a mainstay. Copious copal pleases, transports & transforms. Enough said. 

Public Animas Ceremony Part 4b: Trust Your People: The Choreographer

Continued lessons from the Public Animas Ceremony: An Invitation to Passion.

"Dub" on the Water. Our choreographer & mentor.
Photo credit: uncertain.

If The Vision is true, it will find the right people. Trust them.

Trust them. This is a story about taking risks, trusting The Vision & trusting others to understand & respect The Vision.

Our troupe, Resh K'eljesh has been studying for over a year with a talented instructor who sometimes we refer to as JW & other times we simply call her Dub. She has been dancing for about a decade now, specializing primarily in Modern Egyptian & Cabaret with some fusion (Gypsy, Orientale, Turkish) influences. Some of us study other styles of belly dance with various instructors, but JW holds our hearts in her hands. She is, in our eyes, the embodiment of juicy, flowing Beauty -- & while she can fool you into believing she is really a swan or an antelope, she can swear like a sailor & will tell you when you're looking like crap & that keeps her real, grounded & approachable.

And we Love her.

But there is a natural hesitation to throw full spotlights on one's unconventional spiritual practices & while I personally had made it clear to JW that at least two of us were dancing for "spiritual" reasons, the bigger picture had never been brought to the table -- that being that one of our goals as a troupe was to provide devotional dances or, dancing-as-offering for our own practices & for the greater community. So when The Vision started to congeal & became certain, song-in-hand (so to speak) we had to give it up to the Dub.

And in a major leap of faith, we showed her the bad sketches & the site layouts & explained the Officiants & the offerings & the fire... & we played her the song...

And she stood in the living room, listening intently to the narration in the beginning of the song,

The Soul,
like the Moon,
is new,
and new again.

And I've seen the ocean, 
continuously creating,
since I scoured my mind,
since I scoured my body.

I too Lalla,
am new,
new again.

My teacher,
told me one thing:
"Live in the Soul."

And when that was so, 
I began to get naked,
and dance.


And when the music rushed in she sprang forth, whirling across the room, prancing & flowing, excitedly talking all the while about the rhythm & the fire & what the music was telling her...

The choreographer: JW.
Photo credit: uncertain.

And we all sat, perhaps a little dumbly, in awe of this phoenix tearing across the carpet. Would she catch something on fire?

If you spend a good amount of time among artists (or scientists -- I've mentioned this before) you probably have witnessed the transformation that occurs when a creative human becomes energized by an idea, overcome by a Muse. It is a personal alchemy in the alembic of their mind, heart, spirit-being. It is the experience of personal epiphany & creative electrification. When people enter this "place" (for lack of a better word) they actually appear different -- this is a full-being transmutation.

Then, at one point I recall her saying something like, "...and the offerings, they are special, precious, they are sacred and they need to be presented to the fire as such, perhaps like this..." as she leaned forward in her sinuous way, to pour invisible libations toward the imaginary fire in the centre of the room.

And wide-eyed, we all exchanged glances.

When she left, we were all still settled on the floor like a herd resting in the heat of midday. We exchanged glances & one of us hissed in an excited whisper, "She GETS IT!" Then, gasps & muffled squeals for the risk of trusting another with The Vision had completely & utterly paid off.

And Dub was & still is the right person, despite the challenge of distance & travel, she gives us tools to figure things out on our own when she cannot be with us & for that, we are perennially grateful, thankful.

Thank you JW. Thank you. 


If The Vision is true, it will find the right people. Trust them.

Really Trust Them.



To listen to our Animas Ceremony track, "Lalla's Ecstasy," in its entirety, use the player below. If you like it, please consider purchasing the track & support great independent artists. Visit the Shaman's Dream Music Collective/World Groove Ensemble Bandcamp Shamans Dream Compilation or the Craig Kohland/Shaman's Dream website.

Public Animas Ceremony Part 3: Communicating & Manifesting The Vision (Even Without the Written Word)

More lessons from the Public Animas Ceremony.

Resh K'eljesh in Stick Figures:
A Bad Sketch to communicate a Splendid Vision
by Moma Fauna

When you don't have the words, draw it.

Even if it looks ridiculous.

Because some things desperately need to be communicated and the people who need to know will understand.

And if The Vision is true, your magick will be true & The Vision will be made manifest.

Resh K'eljesh in the flesh.
Photo credit HPS CC.

Perhaps with some subtle differences...

Animas Ceremony Officiants in Stick Figures:
A Bad Sketch to communicate a Splendid Vision
by Moma Fauna

Animas Ceremony Officiants in the flesh.
Photo credit Papa Faunus.

And if you draw a great many pictures...

 

Here and above, Animas Ceremony Officiant's
gestures # 1-17.

...you cannot help but manifest. 

Oh, how I adore magick.

Animas Ceremony Officiants: Gesture #18 --
just one of those subtle differences.
Note the rainbow -- also a subtle & very welcome difference.
Photo Credit: PCC-AK FB.