Rambling: Daily Practice
I've been agonizing for days over how to start this. There's so much background information that is necessary to understand my practice, that I was getting overwhelmed with trying to make the perfect blog and have everything be perfectly organized. But let's be frank, this is specifically intended to include those times when I'm out of spoons and can't function. Part of the stated point of the blog is for specifically that, and that I would be starting out in that place is somehow appropriate. So here I am, with my first post that isn't a formal paper of some sort, and I'm starting in the middle. I hope it makes sense.
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It's hard to heathen when you're exhausted, some say. I think I disagree. It's hard to keep up with one's expectations of oneself as a practicing heathen perhaps, but heathenry is something that feels less like what I do and more like what I am. Maybe that's the animism aspect of it coming forward. Maybe it's because I'm not new at this, but rather than it being something overlaid on my life, my practice is at the core of it. Sure, I can't do big rituals and make major sacrifices, lead a blót, or anything along those lines. Some days I can't even stand up for longer than 5 minutes. But that doesn't take away from what is in my souls.
I've arranged my life so that I can function on a much reduced level. I spend most of my life in one room, and it is set up to give me hand holds or a soft place to land in case I lose my balance. That room includes a shrine that is set up at the top shelf of a bookshelf, so it is right on eye level when I stand before it. Handholds surround the area, and if I must there is a wall right there I can lean against as I stand before my gods, ancestors, and the various spirits that have all been given a home there. It's also positioned so that I simply have to look off to the side to focus on it from my bed where I spend most of my time. In this way, the gods, spirits, and honored dead are always there in my life. They are but a thought away, which is good since sometimes that's all I've got.
Every day I go before that altar and make my offering. You are supposed to watch how much you offer, and this is daily, so usually I'm giving a teaspoon of dry oatmeal. Some days a roasted pecan will be added on top, or if something is requested it may be added on top as well. So I stand before my altar, take the bowl with yesterday's offering and ingest it, then as I'm chewing (I have dry mouth from one of my medical conditions so this takes a few minutes) I set up the next offering and place it before the beings on my altar. Once I'm done with yesterday's offering, and having thus “shared a snack” with the beings on my altar, I talk to them about whatever it is that I need to talk to them about, whatever it was that I didn't feel I could just say from my bed, that I felt needed more formality. And then I finish, saying,
Gods, Wights, and Honored Dead,
Friends and allies all,
I give to you this offering
Of love, honor, and fidelity.
Hail!
Then I raise my fist over my heart in a salute to them, and then it's over. Usually by this point my husband's cat is sitting on the table next to the altar, waiting for his tribute, which I deliver to much purring, before returning to my bed.
I do this every day, not trying to make a big deal out of it. I'm not invoking sacred space or anything like that. I personally only use the concept of sacred space when I'm doing something that I need to separate from the rest of the world for the safety of whatever beings might be resident in my area. Otherwise, on a day-to-day level, I don't separate the sacred and the profane. Everything is sacred, and while there are times that are more formal or solemn, that's not the same thing as saying that's of any more value than a time when I'm covered in dirt from working outside. I feel like setting aside certain times to be considered sacred means that there are times you are not holding yourself to that standard, at which point it all feels performative to me.
Doing something every day seems like a big deal to a lot of people, but it really isn't. My flavor of AuDHD is such that if I don't do something every day, I won't remember to do it at all, so I've arranged something that is low energy, that is easy to remember, and that I can do without spending much in the way of spoons. Then it becomes an exercise in taking a moment from my day to thank the Powers for my life, for my family, for my home. It becomes self-care in a way. And it takes less energy than getting up and getting dressed does, which makes it something that I can center in my life, as opposed to something I have to perform.
Then again, I'm not one for ritual, though I do believe it has its place. Ritual requires an expenditure of energy that I simply don't have most of the time. If something comes up and ritual is necessary, I take it into trance. I've built a place where I can perform ritual in trance space, it's something that I did when I was 16 and trying to practice paganism in a super Catholic household. Since I couldn't have anything solid in front of me and risk my parents finding it, I learned to do it all in trance, and as my landing zone developed, one of its first landmarks was the Grove where I do my ritual. Sometimes trying to do trance isn't a good idea at a given time due to mind fog, and that will confound me some days, but then that small still voice inside me reminds me that if I'm not up to going into trance, even given my background with it, then I shouldn't be messing with anything involving non-consensus reality anyway.
Every day I also try to, at a minimum, meditate for 3 minutes. This is as much for my mental health as it is for my spiritual health; I find that when I meditate, I break out of negative thought patterns that sometimes plague me. It's somewhat ironic that the less that I want to meditate, the more I need to meditate. Sometimes my discipline holds, sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes the brain fog is just so pervasive that I can't meditate, and all I can do is continue to attempt to stay in the now.
On an ideal day, I will have two meditation sessions. In the first, I perform Reiki on myself. This is a relatively new addition to my practice; attunement was offered to me by the head of my coven, so of course I accepted. I can honestly use all the healing skills I can get. It is my second meditation session where I go and visit my landing zone. There I check in with my helpers, make sure there's nothing that anybody needs to tell me, no journeys that I need to take on anyone's behalf. That's something that doesn't get discussed much when you are in trance circles: allies don't just help you because you want them to, true allies call on you as well to help them. I have found that if I don't go check, I miss these opportunities to assist my helpers, and thus cannot deepen my relationship with them. I have lost allies because of neglecting them. Ally neglect is actually something I see a lot of.
I have one last daily practice that I sometimes honor more in the breach than the observance. I believe that our deeds fall into The Well of Wyrd, adding layers of ǫrlǫg to our circumstances and our lives. I formalize this belief into offering those deeds to the Well.
In order to keep track of what I'm doing given the brain fog and given my other health limitations, I record everything that I do each day in my planner. This just helps me remember that I'm not just doing nothing all the time, but it also gives me a record of what was going on if I have to look back and untangle some health issue. I'm a 12-stepper due to chronic pain and illness, and one of the things I'm supposed to do is review my day each day, so I combine all this together. Before I put on my sleep mask each night, I pull out my calendar and make sure everything is up to date, and then I bow my head over the book and speak:
These are my deeds for the day
May those that are worthy fall inside the well to feed the tree
And those that are not fall outside the well to feed the land.
I'll explain this prayer and what it means in a future post.
And now, having shared my daily practice with you all, I'm going to go perform my nightly offering, and try to get some sleep.
KeTHeSa (KEep The HEart SAcred),
Asra