Church is Everyday

Yay, Steven Colbert. A Catholic.

So I started my job at a Director of Religious Education at one of my local UU churches. I am working almost every day getting up and running as a DRE, and it got me to thinking about that peculiar Judeo-Christian habit of "doing church" (or schule) once a week. After all, a lot of my weekly workload is gearing up for a big to-do on Sunday that includes others -in worship services or in class.

Most of the time when I have felt particularly spiritual or religious (see my earlier definition of religious to see why I equate them), it has been when I have a daily anchor in my life- a practice of sitting, devotion, a spell that needs tending daily, etc. And in all those activities, I am an active participant, not a passive observer. Yet the idea of church/schule is where we "participate" with attendance- perhaps singing along or call and response, but often never crafting the worship service per se. After all, in Judeo-Christian traditions, we have clergy for that.

FAIL.

 In my Witchcraft tradition, if you are an initiate you ARE clergy, and if you are not initiated then you have yet to become a part of the tradition. So I have a unique perspective coming to all of this, I realize. (Perhaps I sought out such a tradition because of my personal needs- in order to stay clean/kala and centered/aligned I actually need a daily anchor. Perhaps it is a weakness. But I find that if I do not have this anchor, I tend to get caught up in the mundane world and its trivia, people are their drama, and all sorts of things that aren't actually important.)

So the idea of just attending worship services weekly has never struck me as particularly religious (again, see my definition). Perhaps that is why I was drawn to UUs (and Quakers, among other religions other than my own) in the first place. While they meet weekly, it is more of a "touchstone" practice. They do the work of church throughout the week- focusing on social justice matters and building community Monday-Saturday, and then come together to celebrate and meditate together on results and work yet to be done on Sunday. Or at least the places that I have attended seem to do that.

It got me to thinking. Church really is every day. To "do church", one needs to have a commitment that extends beyond the "showing up phase" on Sundays and gets into a daily or every few days regularity. Church is a framework- a lens with which we see the world and a tool with which to bless it. Time to go to church.

Tangible Witchcraft: Purification of the Body/Self

Like all witchcraft and indigenous traditions, Feri has rites of cleansing and purification. Not because we believe that humans are filthy or sinful- but rather, the socialization that we undergo to become adults adds "complexes" to the black heart of innocence that we had as children, but have now buried. We purify to reach that original state trhat we have lost.

Most Feri witches I know have taken a template that they learned from their teacher for a rite like kala* and personalized it into their own personal practice. I am no different in this regard.

I mainly do kala in the shower (convenient, no?), along with other rites of purification and refinement as part of a larger toilette for the body and soul. What does a soul scrubbing look like?

1. Shower (cleaning the physical body). I cleanse the body in preparation for the day as well as the spiritual cleansing about to take place.

2. Energetic Shower (which is an etheric and auric cleansing, using the Iron and Pearl Pentacles): bringing up red hot iron energy from the earth and bringing down white hot pearl energy from the stars. They meet and fill my still point and then my physical body, then my energy bodies until I pulse and thrum with it.)

3. Kala: lately I have been using sound to vibrate the water and infuse it with cleansing power- before I used breath and physicality (laying on of hands). I like to mix it up.

4. Refinement: After I cleanse my selves, I like to refine my skin and hair- not just for beauty's sake, but also for casting a spell on myself. I use oil for skin and hair (I am a dry person, so after a shower I need moisture and using an oil that has specific magickal and energetic properties is perfect for this.) Lately, I have been doing work that involves thinking before acting. I am a do-er (I like to take action!), and while most of my actions have helped me in my life or built awesome things, impulsive acts don't always stem from wisdom. So I am working on waiting, assessing, and then acting.

5. Mouth Tending: As I brush my teeth and tongue, I think about cleansing the mouth for the power of what the Buddhists call "right speech".** I imagine removing not just tartar and bacteria, but removing the intent to harm or speaking with a lack of intent.

6. Adornment: After getting dressed, I like to take a minute and think about what adornments I wish to wear and for what purpose. I use hair accessories that are beautiful and symbolic as well as keeping my hair out of the baby's grasp. All of my jewelry has meaning. My makeup and scents all have a purpose. When I "do myself up" there is usually a significance to what I select and why. Each on of my rings, for example, has a specific meaning assigned to it. Some of my necklaces are portable spells. I take Pride in my Self and how it looks and I work magick on myself regularly.

 What do you do for cleansing and purification?

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*Kala is a rite of integration and cleansing where a witch takes what troubles her, externalizes it, drops it in water, cleans the water, then re-ingests the water, (converted troubles and all). Know that saying, "That which does not kill me makes me stronger?" That's exactly what kala is- we have lived through a trouble, examined it, gotten to know it inside and out, made our peace with it as being a part of us, infused it with mana (life force) and taken it back in. When done right, it's like doing a shot of kick-ass.

Unlike some witchcraft and magickal traditions which use a banishing to try and purify the Self, Feri believes that trying to cut away parts of you (even the undesirable ones that are tied up in knots) permanently is giving away your power (and isn't actually possible anyway). So we reintegrate that which befuddles, confuses, vexes, and troubles us. While the rite varies from person to person, the rite always includes water and often mana (the energy/life force that surrounds us and every living thing).

**Right speech, explained in negative terms, means avoiding four types of harmful speech: lies (words spoken with the intent of misrepresenting the truth); divisive speech (spoken with the intent of creating rifts between people); harsh speech (spoken with the intent of hurting another person's feelings); and idle chatter (spoken with no purposeful intent at all).

Guest Blog Post! Introducing Elements to Children: Water

Today's blog post is a guest post from... (drum roll please!) Big Faery Daddy, an awesome blogger in his own right and Rowan's father. Since he has been giving Rowan his baths and been responsible for Rowan's exposure to Water, it seemed appropriate.

Lily and I have been introducing Rowan to the Elements of Life, the principle substances that coalesce to bring into being the living cosmos, the four states of matter/energy of which the world is composed, and which we as Witches demarcate as Earth, Air, Fire, Water. A fifth substance is recognized, Aether, which is the underlying energy which takes on these states to manifest.

Each of the Elements works as a symbol, representing a variety of qualities and energies. To quote Gabriel Carrillo: "When we speak about Fire, Water, Air and Earth, we are not speaking about the composition of chemicals, but of how our inner self understands the psychic qualities of the Elements. The Elements are used in magic to create alchemical changes produced by studying, defining, comprehending and embodying them. Clarifying and balancing the Elements internally transforms and greatly enlarges our sense of awareness of ourselves and of the world around us."

This week I have been focusing on Water, which is the liquid state of matter and whose power is Fluidity. In the body, Water manifests in the lymphatic and circulatory systems, and in the mind it manifests as adaptability. These heady associative principles are not something Rowan is going to understand right now, and I needed to appeal to his Fetch, or animal-soul.

I decided that introducing him to Water in the shower would be the best bet -- it's about the only time he really interacts directly with that Element. I often have Lily hand him to me when I'm in the shower so I can give him a good wash, since he hates baths. I usually spritz him with water quickly and then use a washcloth with baby shampoo on it to scrub him gently, then rinse him off again quickly. But today we took our time.

When Lily passed him off, I put him under the showerstream and cradled him against me, so that it was running down the back of his head and making sure it wasn't spraying him in the face, which he clearly dislikes. I let the falling water create a little pool in the hallow of his body nestled up next to mine, and dipped his hands in it, then lifted a small amount in my palm to trickle down his front. He liked it and laughed, so we did that game a few times.

Then I began rocking him while the water was running over us, and I began to invoke the Element of Water, "seeing" the water from the showerstream begin to glow a soft blue, (its principle color association), falling down over us, cleansing us.

Water is very much associated with cleansing and purity in Feri, mainly in a ritual we call Kala, a water rite that unbinds knoted up power within our energy bodies and physical form. A ritual bath is very much the same thing as Kala.

I began to sing a chant that the spirits gave me some years ago:

Mama wash over me, Mama wash over me;
White waves cresting, in the deep blue sea,
breaking over my beautiful body,
Mama wash me clean.

He liked the song, and began to vocalize softly and smile while I was singing it. I then thanked the spirits of Water, and as I was doing so, I could feel Rowan's emotional centers begin to get a little intense, and he began swinging back and forth between laughing and fussing.

It was time to pass him back to Mommy. When we did the handoff, he began to cry, and Lily took him in a towel to dry him off, get him grounded again, and centered.

It was a good adventure, a good introduction to an element that is very "shifty," but next time I'll make sure I have some better grounding going on.

It will be great to see how he develops as a little Witchboy, having a clear relationships with the Elements and the spirits associated with them. So precious!

Io Evhoe!

Big Faery Daddy is a blog about the journey of a queer father, Witch and Radical Faerie as he struggles to hold all of those identities.