Ceremony for the Departed

As always, the crows attend me in my exploits. 2/10

One thing I have to keep in mind as a Shamanic Priestess: I must be ready for anything, at any time.
Just this Friday past, I learned the stunning news that two of my Internet friends has passed away rather suddenly and unexpectedly. Just because I may be more comfortable with the idea of death than some, and just because I can track rather well what is going on...these things don't necessarily make it easier for me when something like this happens. The ceremony to be performed, however, came together for me very quickly. Today, Sunday, I carried out an Honoringway for both of them.

First, a note to charge on my altar....
The names of my Net-friends are on the back of this paper. The strings of beads at the top of the photo are a pair of white necklaces, which I used as my offerings, as you shall see.

With a black boa draped around my shoulders (a gift from one of my now late Net-friends), I went to my destination: Kit Carson Park in Escondido.
It is a charming mix of cultivated park and unblemished Nature...

I caught sight of my ultimate destination soon enough: Queen Califia's Magical Circle, a massive sculpture garden by an artist named Nikki de Saint-Phalle. (I've had the spelling corrected. Thanks to my sister Nikki-phile!) ;-)
The Amazon Queen upon her mount, a crow alight upon her upraised hand...

The last time I had visited this place was when I had re-married myself, in 2004. Someday I may share that story...

The entrance to the massive sculpture garden.
What this doesn't show is all the people who were present on this day. I hesitated at first, then proceeded anyway. I can move like the fox when I need to, which is to say, barely noticed at all. ;-)

I was first drawn to this statue:
She spoke of rebirth to me - a feeling confirmed after I went around behind her and meditated briefly. When I looked up and beheld the symbol...well, it was a perfect photo-op!
I may be a pagan, but I get it when I see it! (lol)

It was a statue directly across the "courtyard" from my rebirth one that caught my eye next, as a perfect place to hang the necklaces I was wearing...
Two snakes, two necklaces...need I say more?
So, a little meditation on the sitting nook, and then the adornment:
Note the necklaces now hanging on the snakes. I fully expect some child, or children, will take them home eventually...and that will be just fine.

Queen Califia and her mount are at the center of the garden. Beneath the beast's feet is a sculpture of a large cracking egg, which is a fountain during certain times of the year. You bet your bippy I included the egg in my ceremony! ;-)
The egg-fountain, with the requiem-paper anchored atop it by a stone heart...which is filled with number-one good juju.

The space underneath the beast is like a cave unto itself, with hidden treasures...
One leg of the beast, with a weeping woman and a cross. Perfect symbology.

A second leg of the beast, with the offerings in the distance.

And the belly of the beast itself is a beautiful deep blue glass mosaic. A tiny sliver of it, providing a graceful conclusion to this chronicle of my ceremony:

Like the Shooting Star...
Here one moment,
Gone the next
(Perhaps too soon!)
But while you were here,
Ah! How beautiful
Ah! How Beauty*Full!

My blessings and love to all who were, and are, affected by the passings of these two brilliant stars in our firmament. As long as they live in our hearts, though, they will live forever.
A-ho.

So this must be Grace...

In this state of Grace, my soul blooms like the sweet lotus. (Balboa Park, 7/09)

To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage. ~Lao Tzu

With the start of the new lunation, I find myself in an entirely new place...
It is a place of calm. Relaxation. Serenity. Beauty.
So this must be what Grace feels like.
I've had glimpses and moments of this sort of satori, but never with this profoundly grounded and centered and harmonious flavor - and it's not going away. I find myself continuing to expand into it, and vice versa.

The synchronicities have been rather lovely as of late...
~My Goddess for this season of Spring (as selected from Doreen Virtue's excellent Goddess Guidance Oracle deck) is Guinevere. "True Love" is her message. There was new moon drumming at the Goddess Temple this past weekend, and guess Who was featured? The very same Goddess! (lol) Had I not been still recovering & shifting, I would have attended, but my inner guidance was all for staying home, and I wasn't in a mood to argue. ;-)
~Lots of messages of LOVE have also been coming up in my radar, from the utterly juicy quote above to the trio of "love" videos that were recently featured at my online homebase. I have come into the Knowing of what it is to love another deeply, and receive that deep love in return. I am so very blessed and grateful; in expressing my gratitude, I receive even more blessings. I find myself being filled with warm fuzzies...and it feels delicious!

Not only am I deeply in love with myself, I find myself deeply loved by others. This is especially full*filling to me, for I once saw myself as "unlovable." That state of existence, fortunately, has long since vanished.

On another front, I officially have one more week of strictly overnight/graveyard to go. Then there will be a major shifting of schedules, and I will be "walking between the worlds," as it were: two days of interaction in my "old" shift, two of solitude in my new one.
One interesting thing has come out of my little nocturnal experiment: a few years ago, it would have been perfect, for I was very much in that "lone wolf" mode of operation. Since I have come home to myself in this last year or so, though, the graveyard life is not as good a fit. I miss my connections. I miss interaction. I do indeed wish to turn the "me" into "we" - and more, I feel that I am ready to do so. :-)

In my expansion, new seeds are placed into my hands. The time is here to plant them and see what sprouts...

epiphany's lightning-stroke!

My friend Brian posted this picture on another site. I don't know where he got it from; you'll have to ask him.

It just so happens that epiphany hit me like a bolt of lightning last Sunday - just after my last post, in fact.
As the Soul Retrieval had healed my scar at its point of origin, I returned to that point and was considering being obliterated. I realized I had been, over and over again...but I was still here. I am still here. Right here, now.

Because there is a part of me that is pure Divine Source Energy ~ and that cannot ever be destroyed!
Any physicist will be able to confirm this for you: matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed; E=mc (squared) is a closed equation.
BOOM! the epiphany strikes me, and radiates outward through my body. Tears flow from my eyes...grateful relief. relieved gratitude.

From there, all my fears, doubts, hesitations, anxieties, worries - ALL of them - have been dissolving, like an ice cube in the summer sun. That handful of limiting beliefs I've been contemplating? GONE. Completely! :-o
For the first time in a very long time, maybe ever, I am fearless. I am as a Valkyrie riding with Lady Freyja through the starry sky!

Now, I'm not so naive as to think I'll never fear again. Ha. There will be times when I contract again, and feel small again, I'm sure. I would like to think, however, these will be new fears, instead of the SOS-DD I've been playing with. ;-)

Now comes the fun part: where to go from here! Hee...

Realignment

On the way to an "unknown" destination. (Questhaven, 2/10)

After my Soul Retrieval in December, a journey came to a conclusion, yes...but a new journey has begun.

For the first lunation (lunar month) afterwards, I was concerned with doing as much nothing as I could get away with, and resting a LOT. Bringing home these last lost bits of soul meant revamping my entire structure; things within me moved, shifted, and pretty well changed to fit the new/old structure. It's new for me in this incarnation, but I'd be willing to bet money in Vegas that I'm simply returning to the structure I originally incarnated with, all those moons ago.

Now as the second lunation comes to a conclusion, I find the theme has been realignment. It's like I'm sorting through everything and saying, "okay, I'm keeping these things, I'm releasing those things, and the pile right in front of me is what I'm going to work my alchemical magick on before I determine whether or not I'm going to keep it."
The Universe is helping me out by removing me from my usual routine and flipping everything in my life around - that's how I'm choosing to see the whole "graveyard" experience, at any rate.
So I've been experiencing a few purges lately, and shifting radically between extremes: now feeling small and scared, now feeling big and confident. I've had a panic attack while driving through hail and I've felt completely at home in the middle of Nature's holy wilderness. Last night I was at the Goddess Temple, drinking in lovely energy...then had to stop on the way home to have a huge releasing episode in the ladies' room! (To circumvent tmi, I'll spare y'all the details.) ;-)

I thought at one point I'd clear everything up with my Soul Retrieval. Not necessarily.
I've cleared out the distractions to focus on what is holding me back - those beliefs which would still limit me and keep me small. I have a handful remaining, but all of them are centered around a central theme: If I allow my light to shine too brightly, I will be obliterated. This is the flaw that runs through the crystal - the fear of Judgment/Rejection/Mortality. This is my scar.

Pre-Retrieval, I had no idea where it came from, only that it ran deep. Post-Retrieval, the source of the scar was revealed, and healed. Now it's time to take the healing from the source and run it along the rest of the scar. I can do this. I must do this - for I'm not just doing this Work for me. I'm doing it for the Collective.

Let Persephone show me the way through the time of Darkness and Death, and back to the Light of Rebirth and Renewal...