MUSING.SILVERBRANCHTRADITION.COM

Imbolc Blessings

2012-02-01T19:26:05Z

Last week I noticed that it stayed lighter outside long enough to make a difference in our day to day movements through the world. That little extra bit of sun felt like salvation. Today instead of typical February temperatures in the low 40s or upper 30s we’re blessed with something in the 60s. Winter’s hold is loosening, bit by bit. Around here it’s been a mild winter. Instead of snows and ice we’ve had colds and pneumonia. Winter is winter no matter what the weather. Not to imply that winter is bad. It’s also hot drinks by the fire, snuggling up to loved ones under a down quilt, watching snow accumulate and still the world to a magical silence. And by this time of year, although we will get more winter weather, we need that sunlight lingering a few minutes more each day to remind us that winter is not all there is. Spring will come – sooner than we think.

Imbolc always brings us promise - promise of warmer days, longer days; promise of the joy of all living and growing things reaching up toward the sun. On this Imbolc I wish you all hope, and joy, and promise.

As we look toward spring, Silver Branch is growing. After some deep work building our roots Silver Branch is now accepting new students. If you are interested or have questions, send me an email information@silverbranchtradition.com.

Don't Throw it Away

2012-01-04T17:08:07Z

I’ve noticed lately that in our speech, we tend to use a lot of throwaway language. Language designed to dissemble, to give us an out in case we are not well received. I’ve noticed that this habit waters down our conversations, our connections, our power and our lives. It keeps us not quite meeting one another. It sidesteps whatever it is we are saying and tells our audience that it doesn’t matter.

This year, I invite you to look at your own language. Do you use throwaway language to take the power out of your speech? When does that happen? How does it impact what you have to say? This year, I challenge you to stand in the power of what you have to say. Let your words be direct. Don’t throw away the gift you have to offer when you speak.

Why does this matter especially to magic workers, priests and priestesses? It matters because by using throwaway language regularly we get in the habit of being willing to throw away the power we are working with. We get in the habit of intentionally blurring the focus of what we have to say, of undermining it ourselves. Habits are pervasive. If we develop this habit in our speech, in the way we manage the energy of our relationships, we will very likely find it creeping into our magic, our mediation, our prayer, taking the power out of the work we’re doing. Your work is needed in the world. It’s needed in all its strength and power. Don’t throw it away.

Blessings for 2012

2011-12-31T20:18:47Z

As we step out of 2011 and into 2012…

May all of your gods smile upon you.

May you feel the deep blessings of the land and the shining blessings of the starry sky.

May you carry forward the blessings of 2011 and leave the hurts and struggles behind.

And above all, may 2012 be the year you stand in your strength and power and bring your blessings to the world.

Happy New Year from me, and from the Priesthood of the Silver Branch Tradition.

Polarity in Relationship

2011-12-17T19:56:46Z

I have been thinking a lot lately about polarity. If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve said that at Silver Branch we work more with relationship than polarity. That’s true. I’ve had the opportunity lately, to see polarity in a different light and I am intrigued.

I have always held within me that polarities are opposites, and therefor in opposition to one another. It is dark or it is light and dark is the opposite of light. Somehow this felt incomplete to me. And more, it felt locked in conflict. I held within me the idea that polarities are always moving farther from one another, going on being more and more opposite. I was never comfortable with that. Nor was I comfortable then trying to work magically with polarity when, at best there was tension between the poles, at worst, opposition.

In studying acupuncture I’ve come to look at polarity differently. We are taught that at its greatest extreme, yin turns to seek yang and vice verse. They are not opposites moving ever farther apart. They don’t live on a line, but instead in circle. You can only go so far toward one pole before it leads you back toward the other.

This is, obviously, not a new idea. And I have no idea how it was that polarity, to me lived on a never ending straight line when nature doesn’t work that way. But suddenly, I have started to see polarity more like all the old tales of lovers who change shape so that one is human by day and the other by night. They are always together, but only at the moments of dawn and dusk do they touch in their true forms. What happens when we look at polarities as lovers seeking to connect to one another instead of polarities as enemies, seeking to either destroy one another or to move as far apart as possible? What a different perspective: polarities in relationship instead of polarities in denial. This is a model I can work with – a model that feels both true and helpful.

When Things Speed Up, Slow Down

2011-11-21T19:09:15Z

It’s gray and rainy and cold. The sun rises later and sets earlier. Nature calls us to move slowly, to rest, to settle in. The world, on the other hand, calls us to participate, to celebrate, and to produce. Now, between preparing for holidays and keeping up with email, now, for just a moment, stop. Breathe. Let stillness surround you. Connect with the land, with the sky, turn inward. Let your breathing and your awareness of the natural world fill the stillness.

As you go about this holiday week, hold this stillness within you. Carry it where you go. Let the peace of it be a calm, still place in your heart. Give thanks.

Magical Adulthood

2011-11-09T18:33:17Z

Last week I did something I hate doing. I cancelled Samhain ritual… twice. Why? I was sick. I hoped to reschedule but when the rescheduled day came, I still wasn’t well enough to conduct the ritual. For me, learning to rest when there is work to be done has been an ongoing endeavor. I think I’ve got it. I think I have incorporated rest in appropriately, then something like Samhain comes up and oh, I struggle to balance feeling like I’m letting people down, not meeting my responsibilities, with the simple fact that sometimes you just have to lay around and get well again…especially if rest has been elusive.

I was meditating on this when I got a very clear message from Hecate. She said to me, “A priestess who continuously sacrifices herself is useless to me.” Ouch. There is no denying the truth of this. If we dwell only in self-sacrifice, then there may not be enough energy available to us to do the work that matters. This is not to say we should never make sacrifices, but that constant self-sacrifice renders us useless. I got the message. I cancelled the ritual and set myself to resting.

Working with Hecate challenges a lot of ideas that many of us are taught from early childhood. She says, don’t be a martyr. A martyr has limited usefulness. She says wield your power or it will wield you. She tells us to use magic, for if we will not use it in our own lives, how can we be skilled enough to use it in service. She pushes us to be adults – adults at the highest level. Being responsible isn’t making sure everything is done – it’s making sure the important things are done and that we are in good condition to continue our duties. And being in good condition means having balance, and rest, and good food, and love, and well-being in your life.

Holding power with clarity, compassion, grace, and love cannot be done by refusing to hold power. Using magic on other’s lives only and not in our own lives is both cowardly and arrogant – for how can we hope to be highly skilled enough to practice magic for others if we refuse to practice? Hecate calls us to own our work and to work in a way that has honor and integrity. She calls us to dwell in our magic. She reminds us that we are priest/ess, magic worker, witch in all that we do, and not only when we stand in circle. She helps us integrate doing with being. We are not only people who do magic or serve as priest/ess. Within our being, we are magic workers, priest/esses, witches.

Honoring the Ancestors

2011-10-31T19:48:02Z

In the past I have worked well with the idea of ancestors, but come up short when I tried to approach my own ancestors. Like many of us, my ancestors fall into 2 categories: those I know nothing about, and those of whom I am none too fond. The second group is naturally much smaller than the first, but because I know something of them, they ring louder in my thoughts of my ancestors. To get around this, I worked instead with the idea of the long dead ancestors. I can’t have anything against them – I have no idea who they even were. This is a cop out.

In the recent weeks, through work with my guides, I came to understand some really critical things about ancestors. Without ancestors, we do not exist. Yes, this is true in a genetic “who begat who” way, but also in a deeper energetic way. We stand as intersections in streams of ancestry. Without those streams, no intersection exists. From a spiritual perspective, we are those intersections. This brings up a harder (for some of us) truth. We carry our ancestors within us both through genetics/biology and as spiritual connections within the stream of ancestry, therefore, to hate our ancestors is to hate ourselves. No, we are not the sum of our ancestry. But, self-hatred in any form, against any part of self, is inherently dangerous, not only to ourselves, but to the world.

Today, I embrace my ancestors, those I do not know, and those I do not like. Today, I will to honor my ancestors and see them with compassion. Those whose deeds were cruel I will try to see within a bigger story. They did not become what they were with no context. Whatever occurred in the life of any single ancestor occurred within the stream of ancestry. Today I will accept that like anything else, my ancestral streams hold moments of absolute grace and moments of human frailty, that they hold love and kindness in at least equal measure with cruelty and hopelessness. Today I honor my ancestors, for whatever else they did or did not do, they intersected to bring me into being and for that, I thank them.

Forces of Nature

2011-10-14T22:27:01Z

I have noticed lately that we, as magic workers tend to distance ourselves from power by adding complexity. We take directly powerful things and turn them into concepts sidestepping their innate power. And I wonder if this is because we’ve forgotten how to directly interact with things. I wonder if it is a side effect of the culture we live in.

In working with our gods and guides lately we have been redirected back to what is – away from what it means and back into direct engagement with the forces of nature as they exist. Water is not an idea, not a set of characteristics applied to things without anchor in the physical. Water is a THING. Water is WATER. It makes up some 75% (give or take) of the planet. Without it you will die. Water can soften the earth, all living things need water. Water can cut through stone over time. We can touch flowing water. Flowing water can carry us along or drown us depending on the force with which it moves. Water is not “west, emotions, ancestors” though it speaks to them and of them. Water is not a concept. Water is a powerful elemental force and being.

When we do magic we can work with the idea of the concepts of the characteristics of water, or we can work with Water. Doing our magic in the physical, using the forces of nature is simple, direct and powerful. It is not for the faint of heart. What would it mean to your magic to engage in it directly, anchoring it in the physical? Astral work is helpful and often powerful, but when it is not balanced with the physical, we lost touch with the powers that surround us. More and more nature shows us her power. Are you willing to touch that power in your magical work?

And more, I wonder, what would happen – how would the forces of nature react if we began to engage with her again in wonder at her power as we do our nature? Will you find out with me?

Qualities of Stillness

2011-09-29T18:24:52Z

For many years in my youth I trained as a dancer – primarily ballet with a good dose of modern dance and a splash of everything else. One thing that teachers and choreographers start to talk about when you’re a more experienced dancer is quality of movement. Not just what is the shape, what direction does it move, how do you do it, but once you are proficient at it, how do you change the quality of movement. Is it slow, smooth, light, airy, abrupt? The list goes on and on.

Stillness, much like movement, has qualities. There is the stillness of grasping things that are moving and holding them still which is constraint. There is the stillness of things that should flow being made unable to move, which is stagnation. And then there is the kind of stillness I mean when I write about sitting in silence and stillness.

When I talk about stillness, I mean a quieting of self, an opening up to allow natural flow without focusing on it. I mean the quietness of slow, even breathing – not unmoving as lungs expand and contract and air flows in and out, but still nonetheless. I mean allowing thoughts to move aside for something deeper than thinking. I mean dwelling, for a little while in peacefulness; Chosen quieting, intentional settling into silence, both internal and external. Typing this I see that there are qualities of silence, too. Silence can a chosen lack of language, a silence that denies all sound, a tense silence, an angry silence, a peaceful silence.

It’s easy to throw language around, but these words mean something specific. Sitting still, fuming mad with my eyes clamped closed and my lips firmly shut is, technically stillness and silence. And yet, it bears no resemblance to the stillness and silence that feeds us and opens us to being able to engage with the more deeply world around us.

Stillness and Silence

2011-09-21T17:57:19Z

I haven’t posted in a while. Not because the priesthood of the SBT is withering, but because I have been busy going through changes in my life to bring the way I make my living more in line with my mandate as a priestess. It’s an exciting time. This year I’ve also been going through a transformation of self due to the work of the priesthood – transformation that has brought my bodies, both physical and subtle into a different way of working and being that supports this work. These changes in particular support my work as the founding priestess of the SBT intent on building the priesthood into the vision I have been shown.

Being at the center of this much change has required me to holder tighter to those moments of silence and stillness. When everything is making dramatic shifts these are the only places of true rest. Now in my new incarnation as a graduate student (studying acupuncture – a career that allows me to work as priestess and healer in the way I make my living), I’ve had the luxury to start to build a day that has space for silence, stillness and peace within it – beyond the silence in my daily meditation. This is indeed a luxury.

For years I have worked hard to create a schedule that let me have a strong daily practice of meditation, prayer, exercise, mediation and writing. I made it all fit. What I sacrificed was rest and ease within the day. Now I am bringing rest back into the picture. I have ease in the schedule most days of the week. I have silence and stillness at hand. I am relearning to rest and to listen in a deeper way not just within the allotted hour. It’s a move toward spending more time being rather than just doing. It’s a practice of deliberate action rather than just need and momentum.

And in that deliberate space I am coming back to regular blogging and to doing the writing that will build the training program for the priesthood and indeed the foundation of the work we do. And in time, just as I carry the lessons I have learned in these years of starting the SBT, I will also carry the lessons of stillness, silence, deep listening and deliberate action within the core of my being. May they serve me well.

Wait

2011-08-31T19:08:20Z

This summer I have not posted on the blog. I have been working hard, allowing transformations to complete, being kind to my body and spirit and not pushing myself to work too hard. Or perhaps pushing myself NOT to work too hard.

Things are shifting, falling into place, strengthening. And I want to jump back into work – pick up all the things I let sit while I was resting. But a quiet voice from deep within says “Wait. Not yet. Do not push. Nurture the strength that is growing within you. Wait.”

And so I wait. I meditate, and rest, and exercise, and eat well, and read a book that requires nothing of me but brings me great pleasure. I attend to my kids, getting them settled in school. And I wait. The work will be here soon enough. I must be strong and well rested to meet it.

In Praise of Process

2011-07-05T16:14:17Z

Because our work is integrative, processing is part of the work.

Lately, when I’m not careful, I find myself applying a false and unhelpful standard to my spiritual work. The standard is that if receptive work is at the forefront bringing clarity and new insight, then I’m doing my work well. If instead, my work is in processing and integrating that which I received, then things just “aren’t working”. Written down like that, or said aloud, it’s obvious. What good is new information, new insight, if we can’t integrate it into ourselves and our lives? Very little.

But the truth is, processing, integrating, moving the new understanding, the new way of working, the deeper insight into all the parts of ourselves, and into our practice, our daily lives, our choices… this is the hardest and most important work of all.

In my work, this is a very cyclical process: Receive, understand, process, understand more deeply, integrate. And then it starts back at the beginning. If I go back through my journals I can see it play over and over. It’s a strong, healthy process. That is, except in the place where I devalue the work of processing.

Is there a part of your work that you unconsciously devalue? Take a look at it. Is it truly not a valuable part of things? Does your practice need a tune up? Or does your perspective on your practice need the tune up?

Save the World

2011-06-29T01:34:21Z

More and more the message coming from my gods and guides is this: As long as most humans hate themselves they will not stop hurting and killing – each other, the earth, themselves one way or another. Salvation comes only from love and that must include love for self and love for humanity. The culture in which we live tells us to mute this cry with anything that offers to dull our senses. And by and large, we humans do. But things are reaching a critical mass and it is time to wake up. We must find a way to love ourselves, each other, and our species not through avoidance but through connection. Wake up. Do this work. Save the world.

I read today about a campaign and documentary called Every Mother Matters. I want to live in a world where this is so ingrained in us, where we hold in our bodies that every mother matters, that we would never think to create a slogan. For if every mother matters, so does every child and every father. If we that’s where we are – that we need to be reminded mothers and healthy mothering matter – then let’s start there.

But the truth and the beauty is this. For every problem we have created in our pain and our ignorance, someone holds the love in their heart and the fire in their belly and the ingenuity in their brain to plant the seeds of solution. We do not have to each reach out to solve everything. We must instead start with love, love for ourselves, for the planet that sustains us, for the people in our lives, for the person or need that can receive what we have to offer and show us a way back to loving ourselves. Start where you are. Save the world.

Making Lives that Fit

2011-06-22T18:06:52Z

In response to my last post Elysia commented:

Wonderful news! Many blessings on your journey. Trodding the same path of seeking career transformation, I would LOVE to read about HOW you made the decision - pragmatically as well as spiritually.

Thanks for the well wishes and for the question!

For me, career transformation has been somewhat sudden and also long in coming. It has been the result of deep integrative work. I, like most of us, learned to fragment my life – work life, home life, spiritual life. I learned to think of myself as the set of roles I played – priestess, mother, boss, employee, wife, sister, daughter, friend. Because it made people comfortable I learned to really keep those roles separate.

A lot of the work the SBT has done over the last several years has been work of integrating our parts. We came to that work accidentally. As a priesthood, we are charged with specific work. Our gods and guides knew we could not do that work successfully while trying to live as fragmented people. So, the work we started with was deep work around integrating those fragmented lives we’ve built. This is hard work. And it results in a lot of life changes. Things that we’d learned to manage as long as we lived in a dis-integrated way were not tolerable anymore.

For me, everything from my daily practice to my food and level/regularity/type of exercise changed. It wasn’t convenient at first, but it was healthy. The last holdout was work. Why? Because I was hopeful that I could be myself fully integrated in the job that I had. That wasn’t even close to accurate. Instead, I found that I had bent and stepped back, and compromised so much at work that the person I had to be while there was someone I could no longer tolerate being.

When I hit that point, the universe bent to help me. My choice was not only an obvious one for me (though far removed from the career I’ve practiced for 20 yrs), I had people saying to me “you should do that!” All the things needed fell into place very quickly. The entire situation was made available to me and required me only to be willing to do the scary thing of leaving a job with which I was familiar and being willing to work out not earning the kind of living I earn now while in school. All that is scary, but not a reason for not doing it.

Does it always work so smoothly? I don’t know. But I do know this. The career for which I will start training in September relies on me using the senses that are integral to the work I do as a priestess and seer. It’s different work, but it focuses on using many of the same senses and being open with the people with whom I will work. It requires me to be all that I have come to be and not to twist myself into unrecognizable shapes. It offers me the opportunity to live as a whole and integrated person doing work I can be proud of.

This doesn’t sound like practical advice, but look closely, I think in many ways it is. Step by step is easy to get, the spirit of change is what can be hard to approach. The older I get the more I rely on a single piece of advice for most things – relationships, jobs, living situations, etc. Does it make you a better, more whole, stronger version of you? My job was taking me in a direction that made me lesser, smaller, and in many ways even meaner. My new career already makes me feel more open. Stronger. Better. More whole. When I interviewed at the school with the president of the program I was able to reference my spiritual work without it being a negative thing. I was applauded for walking a path that is mine. I was told that this school would give me the tools to create a practice that allows me to serve in a way that is my way. I have the opportunity to live in a more integrated manner.

One of my guides told me this recently, and I think it applies: All things must return to their essential nature. An oak tree cannot succeed by trying to be a rose bush.

In terms of career, we are often forced down a road of trying to fit into a shape that is contrary to what we are at our core. While we may be good at it, we can be incredible at something that doesn’t require that sort of compromise.

Changes

2011-06-16T01:51:04Z

If you read this blog on any kind of semi-regular basis, you will have noticed that posts have been less frequent. This year has been one of amazing and often difficult transformation. I’ve made decisions time and again to not force myself to post when other things – things that are critical to the tradition, my family and my wellbeing – were more important. I’ve made the hard decision not to post when I’m in a place where I can’t formulate authentic communication. When my resources have been spent on integrating the transformation and I haven’t had the wherewithal to write anything of value, I have chosen not to waste your time writing and posting only to meet an internal obligation. That was harder than it sounds.

But through it all, this blog – this small gesture of outreach – has remained important to me and feels important to the priesthood of the Silver Branch Tradition. And so it continues, sometimes less regularly than others. The good news is that much of this particular transformation is complete. In response, the structure of my daily life itself will be changing over the next several months and will allow me to spend a bit more time writing, teaching, and building the tradition.

I’m leaving the job I no longer fit into and taking a wild ride to a new career complete with another advanced degree. From software cubicle worker to acupuncturist – I will be taking on a profession that is more in line with my calling as a priestess… after the 3 years of training of course. It’s a little scary leaping into the unknown, but it’s the right kind of scary. I’m looking forward to having more time and focus and to posting more often this fall. It feels right.

The Power of Initiation

2011-06-07T01:46:54Z

I have a friend who is involved with a group that is well known in Pagan circles. One thing that has come through loud and clear in our conversations is that along the way, many of their 3^rd degree recipients seem to fall apart – somewhat permanently. Now for the most part, this has nothing to do with me, except that everything I see is an object lesson. As I build both the priesthood of the Silver Branch tradition and the training that will support it, I view every group, method of training, tradition, and organization as an example – an opportunity to see, at least from the outside, what works and what doesn’t.

The Silver Branch tradition is not a tradition for the masses. It is a priesthood with a specific job. That job cannot be fulfilled if those working from the greatest depth and highest level of experience aren’t standing on a foundation of sound training and sound character.

One thing that stands out to me, not only among the group my friend is involved with, is that in the Pagan community, we often mistake chaos for power. It’s a commonly heard statement that “oh, I had my xx initiation and then everything went to hell.” This perception is held with pride. It is also viewed from a place of judgment, “just wait until he has his initiation, then he’ll get his.” I think in the wider community we’ve lost our way with this. True Initiation is powerful. Some initiations are meant to jar us into a place of re-evaluating and restructuring our lives. But, the training we’ve had and our commitment (Will) are also meant to be strong enough to allow us to use that experience and flourish rather than fall apart. Don’t get me wrong, big change usually comes with some level of feeling like we’re falling apart. But in a good initiation, its transitory, having to do with getting our bearings, becoming this new thing, and putting our lives into a state that serves us rather than wrecking our lives, jobs, relationships and leaving us permanently unstable or dysfunctional.

The measure of how much someone’s life falls apart is not the measure of the power of an initiation. If it were, then what’s the point? Why initiate? Why progress in your work? I would say instead that the growth that is a result of the initiation (and any temporary upheaval) is the measure of the power of the initiation, the strength of the training, the support of the community of initiates, and the commitment and Will of the initiate. That’s right. It comes back to us. Are we strong in our teaching? Are we strong in our practice? Can an upending of how we thought things worked teach us another level of truth about the Universe, ourselves, Will, and Magic? Can it teach us about service in a way that has nothing to do with “should”? Can it, by our choice, change what we are in a positive way? Does it make the false “truths” we tell ourselves and the structures that no longer serve us unbearable while giving us the wherewithal to believe we can change them and to follow through? Does it root us in both our own power and the power of the work we do within the tradition? That is the measure of power in an initiation.

A Message

2011-05-25T01:41:19Z

Last night when I sat down to write a blog post I had a few false starts. They all came too much from the head and withered before they could really become much. When my time for writing was nearly up, I opened a blank document and wrote the words you see below. Today I was tempted to edit it, craft it, shape it into something more palatable. I will resist that temptation and instead share it as it came to me.

We are adrift when we divorce ourselves, even emotionally, from the land. We are a house of cards when we view ourselves as separate from our bodies. As long as we hate our bodies we will destroy the land and ultimately ourselves. It is time to let go of self loathing. It is not useful. We are incarnate beings, blessed with bodies that are amazing systems of energy, life, form and spirit. This life is about understanding what it means to live bound up in this system. Our bodies, much though we strive to deny it, are linked deeply to the land. If it fails, if we destroy it, we also destroy ourselves, and not only on an individual level, but as a species. Can we truly value ourselves so little? Can we really fail to value the living, breathing, growing land on which we live?

It is time to stop lashing out as broken, frightened creatures, intent on inflicting pain in order to stop our own. It is time to stop dulling our senses and to wake up and see what we are killing. It may not be what you think. Killing does not make living hurt less. It only dulls the joy that is available.

Instead, sit still and breathe. Listen. Can you hear a bird sing? Can you see a tree? Do you feel the life coming into abundance around you? I know it’s scary. I know we have been taught to believe that anything that cycles is not true. If it were it would not leave us. This lie will cripple you if you let it. The setting of the sun does not negate the bright light of day. It moves in a natural rhythm that you know deep in your bones and your DNA. The sun sets. The moon rises. The moon sets. The sun rises. No one has abandoned you nor left you alone to die. Reject that lie.

Thinking About Structure

2011-05-19T01:13:00Z

Lately, when teaching, I have found myself saying more and more often, “Now I’m going to say something heretical” or “Now I’m going to go against the grain” or “Now I’m going to say something controversial.” And I started to wonder, when did Paganism and magical practices become dogmatic? And when did I become a heretic?! Dogma is an interesting thing to struggle with. When we’re teaching, when we’re learning, we need some level of fixedness to work with or we feel like we are running amok. We also need something against which to judge our own thoughts, revelations and personal gnosis. Without that, we suddenly think that every thought that wanders through our heads is divinely inspired… or that none of them are.

On the other hand, Ivo Dominguez always says “Be careful of the traditions and practices you accidentally set”. He tells a story of several generations of a family cutting off the end of a ham until it becomes almost sacred “Grandma always did this, its important”. Eventually someone asks Grandma why she did it only to learn that the pan she had to cook it in was too short to accommodate the ham.

We need to find our way between rigid dogma and a completely freeform approach. For much of my early life I was trained as a ballerina. While it taught me many things that I later worked for years to unlearn, it also taught me lessons that are still valuable. One of those is that the rules and structures exist for a reason. The reason is not to bind us, but to give us structure in which to learn. Only when we know the rules and are competent within the structures can we also be competent to know when they are no longer needed and when, in fact, they should be broken. The structures also teach us nuance – how do we work within them to do or learn something new or view it in a new way? And just as the structures are important, there are prodigies who come along whose bodies simply know how to dance and how to move both within and beyond the structure without the years of rigorous training. I have come to see these two truths as universal.

Within magical practice, we must learn the structures and “rules” in order to have context with which to judge our own or anyone else’s work. We must gain competence in the forms and practices in which we train in order to venture outside them, or even to see the nuance and complex beauty within them. And sometimes there are people whose talents simply make that unnecessary – though they are rare. And even they benefit from learning the practices. We also have to keep ourselves from being so rigid that we don’t allow for that natural talent to show up, learn and be trained. And also, maybe more importantly, we need to keep ourselves flexible enough to encourage the questions, curiosity and learning of those students we teach, whether or not they come in order. Likewise, as students, we need to try to see the values in the structures and practices of our teachers so that we can both gain the value of discipline and grow beyond the need for the structures that taught us.

Expressions of Truth

2011-04-27T01:52:00Z

I had an interesting conversation today about learning something with more than your brain and reasoning. The gentleman I was listening to was talking about learning systems that support the practice of acupuncture. He suggested not trying to correlate one system of understanding with another. When learning a tradition or system of understanding the world, let it be what it is. Do not try to understand it in the context of what you know. The reason he gave was that too much is missed when your brain is busy correlating one insight or teaching with something you already know, whether or not, in the end, they lead to the same place. Learning takes place in more than our reasoning, it takes place in our bodies.

This spoke to me because in Paganism, we tend to hear two viewpoints:

There is only one right way, and it’s ours. Everyone else is either wrong or a fake,
It all boils down to the same thing, anyway.

I invite you to consider a third option: all true traditions are expressions of the same thing. This does not make them the same thing – in fact it precludes them from being the same thing. The emphasis will be in different places, the forms will vary, each expression will focus differently and have a different movement to it. And this is as it should be.

This same kind of argument – that there is only one truth - regularly gets applied to social structures. People hotly debate what makes a true family. What is marriage? What is the only true appropriate structure in which to live in love? From the perspective of the Silver Branch tradition, the only true appropriate structure in which to live in love is any structure that is a true expression of love. This doesn’t mean anything goes. It means true love and genuine expression of that has to be at the heart of the structure. This changes the story. The important thing is no longer the shape of the expression but the impulse behind it and the actions that back it up.

In the Silver Branch tradition, we work with universe in terms of expression all the time. Instead of working with stellar worlds/underworld as a pair in polarity, we work with the Earth as a planetary expression of the universe (i.e. the Stellar world), and humanity as an earthly expression of that same spiritual force. It moves us out of a place of opposition and into a place of understanding how things fit together in the fabric of all that is.

Both the root of the expression – the impetus driving it – and the multitude of expressions of it are important. It is the expression of truth that gives us form and context to begin to approach it. And often, by looking too hard and grasping too tightly we lose the truth because we are unwilling to dwell in the expression.

Outgrowing the Box

2011-04-20T01:48:00Z

The job (and career!) that I thought I’d love has become a box I no longer fit into. For a while I tried to fit. I tried to squash myself up and squeeze in while banging a bit on the box here and there, hoping that we could be made to fit one another. Eventually, it became clear. I don’t fit in this box and the box won’t grow to fit me. And given that, I have no desire to reshape myself into a shape that will fit in that box. I’ve worked too hard to become this new creature. It doesn’t matter anyway, a butterfly cannot go back to being a caterpillar, no matter how hard she tries.

And so I am letting go of the box; I am letting go of the day-to-day that no longer fits. It’s a scary, perched here outside the box that served me for many years. But it’s right. I know the shape of that box. I know how to navigate it. There is the comfort of familiarity there, sitting alongside of the discomfort of being wedged in where I don’t fit. But, when you don’t fit, you don’t fit. No amount of pretending will make you fit. Instead, it only does you a disservice. Why on earth should the butterfly try to be a caterpillar? There are more caterpillars there to fill her spot and she has butterfly work to do. The time for looking back is done. I am not a caterpillar anymore.

Are there forms you have outgrown? Are you holding yourself from your work (and from yourself!) by insisting that something you’ve outgrown still fits? By trying to squash yourself to fit it? Be bold. Step outside that box with me. The air out here is exhilarating.