Long overdue status update

Yeah. I have totally neglected this blog, but in my defense, I blame Hekate for taking over my life for the past few months. So there’s that. But here’s where I’m currently at in terms of work that is done/not done/half-done.

1. Finally FINALLY finished slogging my way through Greek Religion. My gods, that is a long read on a fkn kindle. BUT IT IS DONE. It was … very thorough. And also, at times, a little dull. The first chapter on the archaeology almost sent me to sleep, and I care very little about philosophy so the last chapter or two were not very interesting to me. But that’s more about me than anything else, and at least now I can finally get my final book review done. 😀
2. High day reports are drafted. I’ll need to revise them a bit, just to make sure they’re coherent and clear and not too long, but my eight high days are done, and once those reports have been done, that’s that requirement sorted.
3. I need to redraft my High Day essays, because a) I wrote way too much, and b) I don’t know if I focused on the right things? IDEK. But anyway. That needs to be done.
4. I’m up to four out of five months of meditation! I (sort of?) cheated, and have been counting my breath meditation as part of my Covenant of Hekate devotions as my meditation, if only because why do ten months when I could do five? And the structure, for me, is what helps me feel like I’m not just sitting down to do five months of meditation, because I know I would suck at that. The context matters, to me. And it’s work with Hekate, and that is always worth doing. I also think my breath meditation is better than it was before, and more consistent. So that’s something. I meant to play around with the Two Powers a bit more than I had, but I’ll save that for after the next month is done, I think, if the work we’re doing this month is going to make that impossible. But I’ll cross that bridge when I get the new work.
5. I think I’ve done two of the virtues drafts? I need to do more on those, I know. I’ve been procrastinating on them, because it involves thinking time I haven’t had time to prioritise, and I don’t want to do fertility because I have ~issues~ with Fertility As A Virtue, so. XP

I think, once the meditation bit is done, the next big bit of work would be the nature awareness stuff, and that’s really about it. Everything else is drafting essays and such. Tidy it up, redraft and edit, and that’s the DP work done. Which’ll be nice. I have no real time frame for this yet, I’m busy studying witchcraft at Hekate’s request, so the DP stuff has taken a bit of a back seat of late, but hopefully, it’ll be done sooner rather than later. If I’m still working on this by June next year, I’d be very surprised.

Anyway. That’s where things are right now. I will attempt to post a bit more here, and finish drafting things, but for n0w, I have a novel to write. That is also all Hekate’s fault. #nanowrimo #blamehekate 😛

The last High Day omg 8D

Of course it’s been two months since I last wrote in here. Of course it has. I’ve been a bit slack on my DP work of late, I’ve had some work with Hekate to do that’s taken over my life for the past month. This High Day sort of crept up on me, though I swear I’d have been more organised if I hadn’t been out every day last week. So I was left with not enough brain to plan anything more than a small ritual, and leave it at that. Thankfully, I’ve already done 5 COoR High Days, so I was free to do whatever I wanted for this last one.

Also, the joys of working with a Hellenic hearth: this High Day basically runs into Hekate’s Deipnon, and the Noumenia the next day, so isn’t that a fun time to be trying to fit in a High Day ritual wooooo.

So I did a small one tonight. I’ll post the ritual below, after the cut, and there will be photos of the shrine eventually when I am not writing at 11:40pm on a work night, so. But it was good. I did it for Hermes, Artemis, and Hekate, for no other reason than it felt appropriate, and hey, the short ritual draft I used to build my High Day rite on used all three, and I didn’t see a need to change that. I did taken an omen, a card for each of them, but I’ll do a proper ritual/High Day write-up later when it’s not so late. But mostly, it was all, go and be awsm!, don’t let others frustrate you as you aim for your goals, and chase down anything that gets in your way and eliminate it. Heavily paraphrased, of course.

Anyway. I hope your High Days weren’t as rushed as mine. Deipnon tomorrow, then Noumenia. Then I might be all ritual’d out for the time being wooooo. And now that my eight High Days are done, I can move onto the rest of my DP work. 😀

May High Day Ritual Notes

I was pretty terrible at taking photos of this shrine, ngl. They are all blurry. Good job, self.

Late notes are late because apparently I didn’t finish writing the last two sentences the last time I worked on this, so I didn’t post it. I am terrible at this, ngl. I think I got distracted as I began putting a more final version of my documentation together, and began editing down my tl;dr notes into something much more concise. But these are the notes I have, so I’ll post them here, and leave it at that. This is what I get for deciding to spend the evening updating my (physical) DP journal. XD

How did the rite go in terms of structure?
I think it went well, all things considered. I used the short COoR structure I’ve developed over the past year or so, and it works well when I don’t have time for a longer rite. It did have a couple of modifications, though. I added a specific section for honouring the beings of occasion, with specific hymns and offerings given, which I don’t normally include. I also offered more than just water, and used honey rum and grains.

I did the rite a couple of days early because I was starting the Mysteries of Wesir on May 1, and I wanted to give the High Day its own space, rather than crash it into my Kemetic festival celebrations.

Book Review Notes: ‘A History of Pagan Europe’ by Prudence Jones & Nigel Pennick

So I’m done with my first book, the one I picked for my IE Studies title. It was the least worst option in terms of books from the recommended reading list that I was actually interested in reading. I really wish they’d update the list with newer books, but whatever. It’s done. I have written some long and critical notes about what I hated about this book, because me and this book mostly didn’t get on very well. But it’s a short book, so I don’t care that much, and I won’t have to read it again, so fuck it.

I will have to edit this down for submission, because I basically just wrote down all my thoughts before I forgot them and it’s basically 1000 words of all the things I hated. That’s how much I hated this book. And it’s way too long for submission. Anyway. I still need to write up Triumph of the Moon, because I read that one ages ago last year just before I started the DP shhh, and it was good, and while I don’t really want to add Drawing Down The Moon to it as well, I might as well because why not read all the classics, amirite?

Anyway, today is my catch-up-on-DP-stuff day, so I’ll go write up my May High Day notes and get them posted this afternoon. Then I might do some more DPWOTY homework idk. Anyway. Have some notes. If anyone had a better experience with this book than I did, well, you probably had a better day than I did the day I finished this one off. -_-

March Equinox Ritual Notes

March equinox shrine.

I am writing this up later than I had planned, so some details are sketchy af, and I can’t find the place where I wrote up some notes (I swear, I did a post-ritual write up. Didn’t I?)  Anyway. It’s done now, and I believe I’m all caught up in terms of High Day stuff. The two liturgies are posted, as are the essay notes, so we should be good until May.

How did the rite go in terms of structure?
I used the same simple liturgy that I used for the Summer Solstice High Day. I was a bit pressed for time, between doing the 70 day prayers for Bowie the night before the Equinox, and work on the Monday, so Sunday was the only day I had, so I kept it simple.

What things went wrong during the ritual? What things went right?
If you call bumping into Poseidon during meditation, without seeking Him out, and having Him be a dick to you to the point where I walked away, as something that went wrong, then I guess it went wrong?

But everything else went fine, except for Poseidon. Dick.

Who were the patrons of the rite, and who was the gatekeeper?
General Theoi rite, and Hekate was the gatekeeper.

May High Day essay notes

Early Notes Are Early Because They Were There To Be Answered. And at least I can cross these off as done so when I get around to doing the ritual, I can just concentrate on writing it up, because I will be in full-on Mysteries of Wesir mode, and there will be no brain for High Day essays, so.

I almost feel bad for not caring about this High Day because Mysteries of Wesir, but not that bad. Sorry. This’ll be my sixth year with the Mysteries, and I ain’t missing it. I’ll probably post more about what I plan to do later on in the month. It’ll be for Hekate, I know that much, but what else, I don’t know. We’ll see what I can fit in between all the Wesir stuff.

March Equinox essay notes

I know, I am way behind on these, but I have done this, and the one for May, and I’ve belatedly written up my Equinox ritual, so. I am all caught up. Three High Days to go, then I am done with my eight High Days, and I can begin turning these essay notes into something coherent, and less like I am answering questions wooooo.

I might actually give myself time to read over the Hellenic calendar stuff, and figure out if there actually are any equivalents, instead of just shrugging and going, ‘I dunno?’ So there’s that.

Sometimes you need to shake things up

Like when I get the sense my shrines are too cluttered, and Things Have Got To Go. I am terrible with cluttered shrines. I feel like it hampers the energy, and if there’s too much going on, it just ends up feeling like a place I don’t want to be. This isn’t just the case for physical clutter, but also a shrine trying to be too many things at once.

If anyone’s wondering why this is over here, and not at Per Sebek, it’s because it pertains to the druidic shrine, and my growing sense that, if I’m going to do deipnon, and noumenia, a proper household shrine is needed, and the initial isolation of a little corner of the shrine for that purpose ended up feeling too crowded with the rest of it. So something had to happen.

And yes, I know, the High Day stuff hasn’t been posted here yet. I’ve been busy. But I’ll try to get it written up tomorrow, just so my High Day collection is complete.

But I also think this is not a bad time to post about this, considering I’m in the process of setting up a ritual calendar for my druidry that’s more than just High Days, and the evolution of my shrines is entwined with that. It’s the practical side of actually doing ritual as much as it is making space for the important things. So I hope this is somewhat interesting to you, and gives you an insight into how I’m building my druidic/Hellenic practice.

So the Equinox happened etc

I’m a bit behind on posting here, I know, and I haven’t even had a chance to write up my Equinox rite yet because work! But anyway, I did my ritual last night, it was a simple libation one, the same one I used for the summer solstice because /lazy. I had the 70 Day Prayers* to do for David Bowie the day before, so I wasn’t really up for a big ritual, not with work on the Monday as well.

The tl;dr version is basically, it went well, I met Poseidon in meditation and it turns out he’s a bit of a dick, and I still haven’t poured out my water into the ground yet oh gods I have been so busy today. D:

Anyway. I hope your equinox was good, and you weren’t quite as busy as me. Leaving this short because I have work tomorrow and going to bed after midnight is not a good idea. Back later with a proper write-up and maybe some of the DPOTY homework I’ve been slowly catching up on.

* For those not familiar with the 70 day prayers, it comes from the Kemetic tradition, and the length of time it took to mummify a body/the soul to travel through the Duat and become an Akh, iirc. It’s become traditional in Kemetic circles to recite the 70 day prayers for our dead, and so I said them for Bowie on the 19th, and poured water, and offered bread, and incense, and a little honey liqueur. There’s a short devotional post about it on Per Sebek if anyone’s interested. This is part of how I mourn my dead, and my heroes, and Bowie, for me, is a hero.

February High Day Essay Notes

I feel like this one is a bit sketchier than the others, because I just wrote it up now, realising I’d forgotten to do it until now. So it might need a bit of work before submission, but then everything will need that. The post-ritual notes will need to be edited down heavily to at least not have them broach 1000 words, which they all fabulously rush past at the moment (with the exception of Feb, but I want to do that one differently anyway). But that’s a job for later. For now, I have printed these off so I can stick them in my paper DP journal, because apparently I am three high days behind on that thing, so. :D?

Anyway. Have some scattered notes and stuff about February, along with some complaining about how damn hot it’s been here lately. D: /summer is the worst