Allow your earthly tasks to be infused with spirituality.

The Fire season and Water season (Summer and Winter) are both tied into emotion, but whereas Winter is the Emotional Reflection time, Summer is the Active Emotional Force, so as The Wheel spins toward the South, remember to temper your Fire with a bit of Water if/when emotions get out of hand. Find your balance – Feet rooted into the Earth. Face pointing up to the Sky, a ball of flame in your one hand and ice in the other.

As discussed at High Spring/Ostara, the ‘resurrection’ is the awakening. Awakening to the true beauty that is your Self . In doing this you are replicating what the God and Goddess show us all around us. She awakens from Slumber, he Quickens her. She holds him, they unite and through their Union we are blessed with warming air, birds, vegetation, flowing rivers, upcoming harvest.
As Divinaturists, we see all of this and we see it for what it is, the God and the Goddess all around us and within us, teaching. It is not so much that God and Goddess ARE the tree and rock and deer, but they are Within it, and they far Surpass it. They show us what we, as humans are able to understand with our human minds.

There is a story I loved from the Gnostic Texts called The Hymn of the Pearl. It is a rather short story, almost 2000 years old, of a Prince who has forgotten who he was and has fallen to slumber.
http://www.gnosis.org/library/hymnpearl.htm

And to finish, a passage very appropriate for this time of year:

I became water
and saw myself
a mirage
became an ocean
saw myself a speck
of foam
gained Awareness
saw that all is but
forgetfulness
woke up
and found myself
asleep.
–Binavi Badakhshani

Take a Goddess like Cybele. In Rome she was known as the Magna Mater, and previously, in Greece, she was Cybele and had been partially assmiliated by Rhea and Demeter, but before that she was Kybele, the Anatolian Great Earth Mother.

Diana, the favourite of many Witches and Wiccans today, was Artemis to the Greeks. Greek Demeter was Ceres to the Romans. Even Egyptian Goddesses were assimilated into the Roman Pantheon.

Deities were often linked to a particular area within a culture and as such did not just readily move about. Rather they were assimilated into the cultures of other people who moved into the area.

The God of the Jews was the first God that travelled with the people, wherever they roamed and that in itself was proof of just how mighty God was.

This ‘moveable’ God. The One for All, did indeed get about and the religion of the Hebrews and then Christianity (which masculinized this Deity to a far greater extent than is done by most Jews) quickly spread.  However there were and still are, little pockets of people who have legends of their Gods and Goddesses in their hearts in areas which once were home to such adorations.

Out west however, in North America, things are quite different. The all pervasive Man on the Throne (a sort of Zeus, minus the extensive family) has become King. There is no Queen. It wouldn’t be so bad if this deity that was established  here was a Mother/Father God, but it is not. At least not on the billboards and pamphlets stuck to the windshield of the car. This God is a god of words. God of the Book. The temples are occupied by those seeking salvation. Now Thoth… HE was a God of the Books too, and if he were the one here,  perhaps with Ma’at as his consort, well then that would be quite nice. However that is not the way it is.

We have no temples here for the Goddess. There are no secret shrines to the Lady of the Land here in Canada. We are all immigrants from different places. Some of us a complete Heinz 57 breed. We don’t have a Goddess here that can assimilate characteristics of Demeter, or Isis, or Cybele.  People moved here to a Goddessless Nation. There is God galore. No Goddess.

I have sat at church and heard a liberated Priest or Reverend mention God the Mother/Father once. In a United Church. I once heard the Anglican priest refer to the Holy Spirit as feminine, as the Shekinah. That’s about it. I DID however, in a progressive Synagogue hear much reference to God in a non gendered manner and even in the feminine. This is great if you are Jewish.  Canada is not a Pagan country, as the rest of the world was at some point in time. We have some Aboriginal stories and legends that we are very, very distanced from. Invading their land as we did, taking their legends as our own seems absolutely sacrilegious.

I listened to a German Pagan friend discuss Germanic Paganism with another German woman. Likewise if you are from a country that has a Pagan history, you can certainly adopt those ideas into your life. But Goddess does not have her own place here by name. She is simply the Great Mother. She is whomever you think she is I suppose.

Goddess of the cedar and birch and the gentle west coast. Of the land and ocean. Goddess of the mountains and the rivers. Who is she? Goddess of the salmon and the killer whales. Goddess of the prairies and the wild and powerful East Coast. Who is she?

I think of Natura, our name for Goddess (a latin word for nature, which seems apt because our flora and fauna are all of latin origin) and I wonder who she is. I am sure her presence here has been known to generations past. Those whom this land belongs to have stories I am sure. Stories I would love to learn.

Just pondering.

The days have grown longer.

I stand in the kitchen, preparing dinner, and the long shadows of late afternoon fall upon the mountains. Golden light cascades through the kitchen windows, bathing everything in a soft gentleness. I look at the clock and realize ‘It’s 4:30! It’s not dark!’…

We have made it through the darkest, longest days – and in our area – a late blast of winter’s power. We spent the last two weeks with temperatures plunging to below -15 at night (cold for us pampered west-coasters) a few feet of snow, breathtaking winds, driving rains… but even through all that, the hours of daylight increased.

The crocuses are still forcing their way through the warming soil. My early budding lilac is sporting some lovely fresh greenery. The birds are happily singing in the shrubs and trees in the yard.

Moving forward, into the light, adjusting the ‘thinking cap’ but getting ready to put on our travelling shoes. Walking toward new adventures. The hibernation and contemplation beginning to give way to slight stirrings of action.

Will you celebrate Imbolc? If so, how? Feel free to share your thoughts on the new season.

Blessings!

(feel free to discuss this topic here )

The sun … not only furnishes to those that see the power of visibility but it also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation. … In like manner, then … the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the Good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the Good itself is not essence but still transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power. (The Republic, 509b, trans. Paul Shorey)

With the rapid approach of the winter solstice, at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere we are approaching with equal rapidity a grand Feast of Lights. Whether this is Christmas or Chanukah, Kwanza, Yule or some other variation on the theme is not, for just this moment, the point. The point is the return or birth of the Light into the world. It is perhaps tempting to put scare quotes around return and birth. We all know the sun is in no way born at this time of the year and in fact the earth begins to move away from the sun in its elliptical orbit. So it is in no way returning to us, either. We are all aware that these words are metaphors for something else. But let us resist the urge, again for just this moment. Instead let us understand that the sun is indeed once again born to the world. That it has returned to us.
Or, rather, that at this time of the year we return to it. Let’s come back to that in a moment.
In The Republic, in the portion just before what is known as the allegory of the cave, as well as in that allegory, Plato connects the sun to the Form or Idea of the Good, which is understood by the Neoplatonists as an aspect of the One, God. The sun is described as a symbol for the Good. As the above quotation tells us, both the sun and the Good give to that which is beneath them life and existence. At the same time, the sun and the Good are beyond that which they give. When we talk about the return of the sun, or Son, this is what we are talking about.
The Good is a selfless giver. It asks for nothing in return for what it gifts to us. The Good, the One, God, whatever you’d like to call this, needs nothing from us. We, however, need it and need it entirely, for the Good is the source of being and essence. Without the Good there is nothing at all.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. – John 1:1-3

The quotation from John, which perhaps coincidentally is my favorite quotation from the Gospels, describes this well enough. Everything that exists has existence because of the Good. Because that spiritual Sun shines upon us, loosing nothing of itself while granting everything to us. That we give gifts at this time of the year is then not at all surprising as the impulse to life in imitation of the Good is perhaps strengthened at this time.
If that is true, that especially at this time of the year we have a renewed desire to participate in the Good through our various religious and spiritual traditions then we have also come back to the beginning of this little missive. If this is true, then the sun, or the Sun, really is returning to us. Or we are really returning to it. God is always there, of course. Not just “out there” but “in here” as well. Always has been. Must be. For without the Good, without the Logos, we are nothing, without being or essence. So God hasn’t gone anywhere. This leaves us with the uncomfortable idea that we’re the ones who left. Probably without so much as a “be seeing you.” We likely didn’t realize we were drifting apart. And once we’ve spent time in the darkness, our eyes adjust and we think we’re seeing things clearly.
In the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite this is the very definition of “sin.” Sin is not some act of petty, let alone horrific evil. It is missing the mark due to our varying degrees of ignorance of the Good. Yes, we all want to do good, to be good, to participate in the Good. We all act with some good in mind. Even the worst demons, Dionysius tells us, act with a good in mind. But if we have hidden ourselves from the Light, our blinded vision is of no help to us, and so we wonder off the path, sometimes a little, sometimes more than a little.
The Good does not condemn us for this. God knows who and what we are, after all. According to Iamblichus we incarnate the first time because, though pure of sole, we cannot control our passions. God knows this already. It’s part of who we are and it’s part of why we’re here. There is no need for condemnation, just correction. That correction may take a long time to achieve, but it is never impossible. Because even though we may no longer see the Light, even though we may have hidden ourselves inside a cave to watch the flickering shadows, that cave and those shadows are also filled with God. Just as we are.
The truth is that the Light never ceases to shine upon us or in us. Our awareness of this fact, or lack thereof, doesn’t change this. It changes us. And so, once a year, we give ourselves a reminder. We light lights to remind ourselves that the Good loves us and is with us and that we can live in participation of that love and share it with others, which is also in imitation of that ceaseless love. And when we do that, when we once again become aware of that Light, it is born within us. It is a birth that has nothing to do with time and history as we commonly understand it, but a birth that exists within an eternal NOW. It is the Word being spoken for the first time and forever, not echoing throughout eternity but having full voice in a constant creative speech.
At this time of the beginning of the eternal Feast of Light I offer to you, my friends, my brothers and sisters, whatever blessings you would wish for yourselves, not just for the coming year but for now and eternity. For a Word spoken, just like the eternal Light and Love of God, never diminishes.
Peace to you.
-Jeffrey

http://jeffreyskupperman.com/

http://www.jwmt.org/

This is in relation to the Tree of Life.

Leaving out the Supernals, we have Tipheret in the position of East, Chesed in the South, Malkuth in the West, and now…Gevurah.

Gevurah is related to Fire. Words that lend themselves to Fire are restriction, judgement, purification/cleansing. Although Winter, in the Northern point of the Wheel is cold, the aspects of the cold are restriction, death, and other not so ‘happy’ key words – words that actually associate with Fire-Gevurah. We have to keep in mind that the Sephirot are not the actual manifested elements. Gevurah is NOT fire, but holds the characteristics. Gevurah lies upon the Pillar of Severity. Winter is quite severe.

The Blessing of the North is Fire. Once again, because it relates to Gevurah, but also because it is the heat of fire and brightness of light that allows us to tolerate the cold.

It takes little to notice the usage of red and gold at this time of year. They are colours chosen frequently for holiday decor. Both are colours of Gevurah.

In this cold, restrictive, harsh time of the year, (inner actions of Fire) we count on the heat and the light of the outer manifestion of Fire. Hence, we honour the Element of Fire at this time of year. To balance out the Cold. To provide comfort and light. We think about the light that will return, and we nurture that spark within ourself that needs to take hold and root during the darkness, in order to strongly reach toward the surface once again.

Lead me from the asat to the sat.
Lead me from darkness to light.
Lead me from death to immortality
Om Peace Peace Peace.

(Brhadaranyaka Upanishad — I.iii.28)

http://www.amritapuri.org/3731/asatoma.aum
Shantih Paath
Om Diyo Shantih Antar Rikshagoon
Shantih Prithavi
Shantih Raapa
Shantih Roshadaya
Shantih Vanaspateya
Shantih Vishveydeva
Shantih Brahma
Shantih Servagoon
Shantih Shantih Reva
Shantih Sama
Shantih Raydi
Om Shantih Shantih Shantih

May there be peace in the heavens, peace in the atmosphere, peace on the earth. Let there be coolness in the water, healing in the herbs and peace radiating from the trees. Let there be harmony in the planets and in the stars, and perfection in eternal knowledge. May everything in the universe be at peace. Let peace pervade everywhere, at all times. May I experience that peace within my own heart.
— Yajur Veda 36.17

http://www.givepeaceachant.org/sp.html

Sorcha, our Treasurer and a Witch and Wand Maker is one of the coordinators of the CCC, along with Yolanda (an amazing artist, her temporary site is here), but I had not met Yolanda yet, so it was a pleasure to finally make her acquaintance. There were a few other new friends to make as well. I was thrilled to meet a girl who likes to hand drum. My husband was hoping to connect with some people for a musical project, specifically hoping to meet up with djembe lovers, and so of course I requested the ability to discuss this further with her.

If you are in the Fraser Valley area and would like to make it to a CCC, they are held on the third Friday each month. More information can be found at http://paganpathways.webs.com or if you are on Facebook, you can go to  the Pagan Pathways page .

Blessings!

This forum is integrated to wordpress (simple:press ) and although I do not expect it to be a busy place, I thought it would be good to have it here. The Divinaturist Fellowship is primarily an online establishment. This is mainly due to the fact that it is a very new spiritual path and therefore there are not hordes of people demanding a brick and stone temple.  I am more than happy to communicate with anyone who is interested in learning more, or who just wants to share their own spiritual story. The forum can be a great way to do this. Once someone registers, people can communicate via Private Message, or through regular forum conversations.

If you live in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, public services may be held soon at the local temple, Circle of the Eternal Sun.

Of course, I can always be contacted via email also, at birch (at) divinaturism (dot) com .

So, now… off to update the site a bit more. Some more information, some contact links and who knows what else!

Blessings to you,

Birch