Goddess Centered Practice
In the woods behind my house rest a collection of nine large flat rocks. Daily, I walk down to these “priestess rocks” for some sacred time alone to pray, meditate, consider, and be. Often, while in this space, I open my mouth and poetry comes out. I’ve come to see this experience as "theapoetics"—experiencing the Goddess through direct “revelation,” framed in language. As Stanley Hopper originally described in the 1970’s, it is possible to “…replace theology, the rationalistic interpretation of belief, with theopoetics, finding God[dess] through poetry and fiction, which neither wither before modern science nor conflict with the complexity of what we know now to be the self.” Theapoetics might also be described, “as a means of engaging language and perception in such a way that one enters into a radical relation with the divine, the other, and the creation in which all occurs.”
Boundaries and Blessings
I often carry a medicine bag or pouch
wherever I go.
But I am seeing now,
I AM a bag of medicine.”
—Mahada Thomas (We’Moon)
A companion ritual recording to this post is available here.
The theme of the ritual is blessing and boundaries and in audio I not only share about the rune of the week, but also some quotes and resources about boundaries, self-care, stretching oneself, and discernment between pushing forward in a powerful way or a depleting way.
In Womanrunes, the Wand is the rune of blessing. It is a rune of calling in AND sending forth. What are you calling in? What are you sending forth? How are you blessing others? In its lesser-explored aspect, The Wand is also a rune of boundary-marking and boundary establishing. In The Twelve Wild Swans by Starhawk and Valentine, they write of boundaries as both your own edge as well as the sensory system that identifies the edges of others. How are your boundaries? Are you able to hold your own “perimeter” while still being permeable and flexible when needed?
“To gather true power, fortitude is necessary. A midwife stays through the duration of a birth. She can’t simply yawn halfway through and say, ‘I’m tired. I’m going to take care of myself and go home.’ Taking care of ourselves has become something of a New Age watchword. Many of us have indeed learned that unless we take care of ourselves, we have nothing to offer anyone else, and that too much focus on fixing other people may be a way of maintaining their disease and avoiding looking at our own problems. But to learn magic, to gather power, is also to sometimes push ourselves, to test our limits, to go beyond our zone of comfort and ease.”
—Starhawk and Valentine (The Twelve Wild Swans)
May you be aware of what you are calling in and sending forth, may you be mindful of tending to your authentic self and to the health and beauty of your body, may you exercise wise discernment, healthy boundaries, and may you embrace the exhilaration of being here on this earth right now.
And now, the rattle passes to you…
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