Ritual and (drunken) writing.

-

When I started my atheopagan practice, I created a journal for all my related thoughts and plans. I don’t know if I had a clear idea of what would end up going into that journal, but it ended up being more, I’m sure, than I imagined. It’s become home to my plans for spring and fall gardening, the place where I write down divination card pulls that resonated with me, where I keep an ongoing list of organic-to-my-life moon names as they occur to me.

My atheopagan journal, in all its blood-spattered glory.


But most of all, it’s the home of my ritual inspired poetry; I keep it near me during every major holiday’s ceremony. Which means it is, to a significant degree, a journal of drunk poetry. I hope this makes you smile, or giggle. It makes me smile. I smile because instead of feeling ashamed, I feel love; I feel compassion. Compassion for the part of me that opens up and spills out all my sentimentality, all of my earnest longing and soft vulnerability, when I let go of whatever shame about being a spiritual, feeling creature might still cling to me. I do not need to drink to get to that place but, to go for a deep dive into it, it does help. 


I’ve written poetry while buzzed or drunk my whole adult life. But before I started my practice, I would look at it the next morning or in the days that followed and feel a deep sense of embarrassment. This was not only because it was bad — actually occasionally it could be quite good — but more because of the vulnerability that it represented. I’ve spent all of my life in the educational system; undergrad, grad school, and now I am teaching at a university. Somewhere along the way I learned to be ashamed of the parts of myself that are not automatically critical, rational, critiquing — the parts that believe in love, the sublime, and the ecstatic. The parts of myself that can experience the mystical.  


Ritual As Remembrance 


All you have to do, 

to see your ancient kin -

is Remember. 


All you have to do,

to speak to the gods again -

is Remember.


Remember, in your bones

That all you are came from them

Remember that they flow in your blood, 

As rivers reach the sea. 


Ostara, 2022


So deliberately encouraging myself to write more of that drunken poetry was actually purposeful, and on purpose — the entire endeavor of beginning to have a religious practice was an act of pushing myself to defy my own shame and fully embrace these parts of myself. And wow, I am so glad I did. In a way, this entire blog is a testament to the rewards of that decision, that manifest theirselves in so many ways, small and large. 


And one small way is how when, in the sober light of day, I look through this notebook filled with plans for my garden, thoughts about the nature of consciousness and yes, lots of drunken poetry, I do not feel ashamed. And more than that; I’ve started to realize that I can go back, read what I wrote, and edit it, with the insights of sobriety, to bring it closer to what I was trying to articulate. Many turns of phrase and metaphors would have likely never occurred to me in an entirely sober state, so in addition to the regular sober writing I do, I don’t have to reject the insights that come to me when I’m a little detached from my usual skepticism in their entirety. Of course, much of this drunk poetry is bad; some of its hilariously so! But some of it is just right, and only needs a little editing (occasionally, none at all, although those are always very short poems; 2-4 lines usually), and reminds me of the moment I was having which, perhaps, without the poem, I would not have remembered in such rich detail. 


THRIVE


Tonight I remember my ancestors who fought,

Against this creed that declares itself against mankind.

That preaches joy is sin - 

That animals are not our kin. 


And in honor tonight of those who fought, 

I will continue to defy

These lies that set themselves against all that is human - 

And I will drink, 

and laugh, 

and sing, 

and writhe. 


Samhain, 2022


This is part of my work of trying to hold both of these parts of myself — the skeptical and sober, the mystical and intoxicated (literately or figuratively) — at the same time. To view them not as enemies, but as parts of myself that can be in conversation with each other; can learn from the wisdom but also the weaknesses of the other. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dust to dust.

-
Image
On Aug 1st, my birth mother Lynne passed away. I did not know her well. Her life had been marked by trauma and addiction, and shortly after we met when I was 21, what had been the longest period of sobriety in her life came to an end. Although I gained good relationships with a younger and older half-sister – I share a different parent with each – and with my birth father, I never really got to know Lynne. As of today, we still do not know for sure what finally caused her heart to stop beating (the toxicology report is still pending), but years of serious health conditions and alcohol abuse meant that no one was surprised when she went. In addition to not knowing her well, I never felt the need or desire to have an emotional connection with her on the basis of being her bio daughter. So when I got the call from my sister (who I was raised with and was also Lynne’s bio daughter), I felt some gravity but I was not hurting. I went for a walk in an usually cloudly and cool morning, and rea
Read more

Rituals in progress.

-
Image
On Winter solstice I observed Yule. For the first time, I had to bring my   celebrations inside; it was raining all night.   But the adjustment worked out beautifully; using the detachable top of my outdoor fire pit, I made a diamond of candles and lit them all to serve as a small fire. It was lovely to sit next to the Christmas tree, that most celebrated of pagan traditions that managed to survive into the present despite centuries of doctrinaire Christians trying to eliminate it, and contemplate continuity with the past.   Flexibility, I've learned, is necessary when going about developing your own rituals. In my earliest pagan holidays, I came up with elaborate scripts and lists that planned out the order of events and observances down to the last detail. But I’ve found that that generated more stress -- and frankly more stuff to clean up the next morning -- than benefits. So while I have kept the best aspects of my initial constructions, I’ve been trying to simplify as much as
Read more

One year of paganism.

-
Image
A year ago I decided to start practicing paganism. I began with researching Lughnasadh, and designed a simple ritual that I felt combined some aspects of traditional practice with my own invention in a way I was comfortable with. It was not my first time I acted on the desire to acknowledge an earth-centered holiday; a year or two back I had burned a small fire and sung a song on Winter solstice. But this was my first time coming to a ritual with the intent to craft a kind of practice for myself, and to do so consciously embracing some sort of paganism. Lughnasadh, 2020. So much researching, experimentation and exploration has happened in this past year. I’ve learned a massive amount about Norse and Germanic paganism, and began reading some of the best primary sources we have for this history. I began a book series — which for me, is notable because I rarely read fiction — to spend even more imaginative time there. I’ve learned to mark memories based on the full moon, and I’ve spent ho
Read more