Letter to the Kindreds

Dear Kindreds,

I know I've been a bit distant recently.  My ritual last week was tired and rushed.  I forgot my usual peace offering for the Outdwellers.  I forgot to honor the bardic spirit until after I made an offering to the ancestors.  I forgot the ale but, luckily, had whiskey on hand.  It felt like one of my first rituals.  I was embarrassed and felt defeated.  My daily devotionals have been lackluster.  I've waited until the last moments to do them before I lazily drag myself to bed far too late.  I speak in hushed tones or in my head because my husband is often there getting ready for sleep.  The altar is in the bedroom and I feel exposed and/or distracted at times.  I know I should do my rituals and devotionals earlier when my husband is at work or busy in the living room, but I spend my time doing other things.  There are things that need to be done, like cleaning.  There are things that I feel called to do, like sew.  There are also huge wastes of time...  Most days, I just want to sit and relax after a long day of work.

I would blame leaving home and visiting family over the weekend for my disrupted routines, but it's really my own lack of discipline.

I hope you know that you're never far from my thoughts.  I see you in the trees, feel you on the breeze, hear you in my dreams, and experience you in my art.  I try to keep close, but sometimes I feel like a boat that, while tethered to the dock, has floated lazily away.  I don't know how others do it.  How do they complete their study programs so quickly?  How do they meditate so regularly without falling asleep?  How do they write articles and books?  How do they do all that while having a job and social life?

Great Kindreds, I will work harder to spend more time with you.  I will work on taking better care of myself and getting to bed sooner.  I will try to waste less time online. I will try harder...

With love,

Grey Catsidhe

( For My LJ Friends: http://adfcatprints.blogspot.com/ )

A Relaxed Spring Ritual

I am so blessed to have a husband who is willing to have rituals with me despite his lack of religion.  There are even days, like today, where I feel "out of it" and it's him encouraging me to do the things I value so highly.  I've been feeling congested all day as well as kind of depressed.  I knew I wanted to acknowledge the new season in some way but felt blase about it at the same time.  Hubby kept asking and asking so I finally decided that we would do a very laid back ritual closer to my longer devotionals.

Hubby said he enjoyed it.   He helped out by making a couple offerings and drawing the cards for the omen, even helping me interpreting their meaning for our lives.  To me, it was such a bonding activity.

We honored a being I've been calling "Forest."  I see her as the guardian spirit of NY.  I don't really know her real name so just call her that because that is where I feel her strongest.  There is a wildness about her and yet a tameness - much of it imprinted on her by us, but she nourishes us through the fertile, tilled fields where thick trees once stood.  She's the localized Earth Mother who is waking up after a winter nap.

The omen we received was similar to what I got in my last ritual, and yet hubby felt there were other meanings too, which made a lot of sense.  The kindreds are calling us outside, to travel to our tribe, to dive into our different projects, and to not worry so much.

That last bit is something I need to work on...  Really, it's probably the crux of my personality flaws.  I worry too much about what I need to do, whether or not I'm good at something, whether or not I'm attractive, etc...  I need to just stop and be.  It's these things that are acting as hurdles to my spiritual development.  My mind is sometimes far too busy and it needs to relax.

Dealing with Stress

I've found that one of the biggest hurdles I have to overcome before meditating or trancing is dealing with stress.  If I have a lot on my plate or recently experienced a stressful situation, I feel less motivated to meditate.  If I somehow convince myself to try for the sake of piety and practice, I then have to figure out what to do with my stress to calm my body down.  For awhile I was trying a couple different methods - relaxing each part of my body individually or visualizing a river where all of my stress went into and flowed away.  


Recently I've been trying something new that resonates with me and works very well.  Those of you who know me know that I have a thing for fire.  I'm a Sagittarius after all!  I started to visualize a bonfire in my meditation.  I imagine my stress floating into the fire like bits of paper which then burn up and float away into nothingness.  Nothing has been quite as helpful to me as this method.  


How do you deal with stress in meditation?