Printing Prayers on Water

In Becoming Animal, An Earthly Cosmology, David Abram writes:

[At a gompa, the resident lama] took my hand and led me down a long trail to the river, so I could watch his two students as they worked with temple woodblocks artfully carved with Tibetan ritual verses. Normally these precious woodblocks were used to print out liturgical books. But now -- amazingly! -- the students were stamping the wood-blocks over and over into the flowing surface of the river, so that the water would carry those printed prayers to the many lands through which it traveled on its long way to the Indian Ocean.

Here, remarkably, was a culture wherein written letters were not used merely as a record of words once spoken, or as a score for oral speech, but as efficacious forces in their own right. The letters were not just passive signs, but energetic agents actively affecting the space around them. Whether written on the page of a book or carved into woodblocks, whether etched into standing stones or printed on flags, the Tibetan letters held a power that could be activated not only by human beings but by insects crawling through their cracks, and by water flowing along their shapes, and even by the breeze gusting across them. Human intentions, carried in dreams and prayers, mingled here with the intentions of stones, trees, and rivers. Clearly, "mind" in this mountain region was not a human possession; it was a power proper to every part of the elemental field.

It's common at some point in the training of almost every Witch or magic worker to hear that "words have power." We say it and then we move on. IMHO, it's one of those "basic teachings that are too basic for beginners"; one needs to keep coming back to this precept over and over, spiraling back and learning it more dimensionally each time.

It's part of the reason that I love poetry and promote it regularly to my (mostly) Pagan readers and it's part of the reason that boring, repetitive, bland calling of the Elements drives my priestess soul insane. It's why I'll go to the wall over the need for magical workings to have clearly stated intentions. (If you can't state it clearly, there's a pretty good chance that you've not thought it out, clearly, either. The one tends to foster the other. And I'm too respectful of magic to go releasing energy at some vague, misunderstood target.) And it's the reason why I go on and on about the importance of how we frame issues. When we mingle our intentions with those of stones, trees, and rivers, we owe it to those other entities to use one of our tools -- language -- as respectfully and as skillfully as possible.

What power do you find in words?

Picture found here.

Dissident Bodhisattva

*

Dear Weather Gods,

Just a suggestion.

Love,

Hecate


PS Thank you for the rain we got yesterday. Please send more.

Saturday Poetry Blogging/Rain Spell

We overcome this wind.
We desire the rain to fall,
that it be poured in showers quickly.
Ah, thou rain, I adjure thee fall.
If thou rainest, it is well.
A drizzling confusion.
If it rains and our food ripes, it is well.
If the young men sing, it is well.
A drizzing confusion.
If our grain ripens, it is well.
If our women rejoice,
If the children rejoice, if the young men sing,
If the aged rejoice,
An overflowing in the granary.
A torent in flow.
If the wind veers to the south, it is well.
If the rain veers to the south, it is well.

~John S. Mbiti in Earth Prayers from Around the World, edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon

Picture found here.

The Craft Of Craft

In The Knitting Sutra: Craft as a Spiritual Practice, feminist author Susan G. Lydon writes that:

Knitting grounds me in the realness of the physical world. The feel of the yarn in my fingers, the steady growth of the fabric, the soothing click of the needles, the attention required to stay on course all help to hold me close to terra firma. Though mind and spirit travel in the cosmos, beyond the moon and stars, my body stays rooted in comforting solidity. I've come to appreciate solidity in these last few years, to value strength, an unshakable core.

Some days, I luxuriate in solitude like a cat basking in the sun. I've fallen in love with the whole of creation, the redwood trees, the fingers of fog, raptors tracing circles in the sky. I'm living a life I always imagined but never knew how to find.

I've been thinking a bit lately (often while knitting -- a beloved friend is having a baby, I'm finishing up an Autumn-colored sweater for G/Son, I'm starting to think about holiday knitting (last year, I made hats for the men in my family and scarves for the women; this year, I'm thinking of cowls for the men and hats for the women)) about the relationship between craft (which, in my case is knitting, but in yours might be beading or basket weaving or crafting amazing cocktails or macrame -- does anyone still do macrame?) and my spirituality. And, of course, Wicca is sometimes known as the Craft of the Wise.

I like the way that knitting weaves me into a many-thousand-year-old circle of women, women who, even when they could sit down and "relax," kept their hands busy making things to keep their family warm. Knitting is generally passed literally and physically from woman to woman: mother to daughter, aunt to niece, teacher to student.* I suppose it's theoretically possible to learn to knit by reading a book or watching a video, but I don't know anyone who learned it that way.

I learned to knit, when I was in my early teens, from an old woman in our church named Mrs. Williams. She was an amazing knitter! When Son was born, she made him a cardigan and beret that I passed on to G/Son. I don't know who taught her to knit, but I like to send my gratitude back through that line, from me to Mrs. Williams, to whoever taught her, to whoever taught her . . . whenever I pick up my projects. If women had been taught to value their own skills, maybe knitters would be required to recite their lineage when they learned their craft, honoring the names of productive craftswomen long gone. My grandma crocheted, and I treasure an afghan she made for me. Her craft links me back to her and reminds me of her love every time I snuggle under her handiwork.

In Sacred Circles: A Guide to Creating Your Own Women's Spirituality Group, Robin Deen Carnes and Sally Craig note that women's spirituality:

is rooted in the daily experience of being a woman, whether we are cultivating herbs or cooking with them, diapering a baby, giving a presentation, or dressing for a formal dance.

I think that's right, or, at least, that women's spirituality should be rooted in our daily experiences. Knitting is part of my (almost) daily experience and so it makes sense for it to play a role in my spirituality.

I also practice a simple form of protection spell whenever I knit something. I weave my intention for safety and warmth (for whoever will wear my knitting) directly into the ribbing, the knitting and purling, the twisting cables, the oh-so-time-consuming seed stitches. I cast on repeating the spell I've made and focus on a visual picture of my intention each time I turn a row (or hit the marker on circular needles).

What's your craft? Who taught it to you? What role does it play in your spiritual life?

*I do know that some men knit and that's great. But it is, still, a craft practiced overwhelmingly by women.

Spring Cleaning The Ritual Room

One of the things that attracted me to Witchcraft was the notion that this was a practical religion, based upon experience. Witches were the people who did what needed doing: grew herbs to heal the sick, helped women give birth, assisted Mother Earth in the Turning of the Wheel.

But you know, oh my Sisters and oh my Brothers, I am beginning to lose faith in us. Because it occurred to me today that, while there are spells to attract partners, spells to bring prosperity, spells to summon otherworldly beings and ask them to assist us, and spells to unjam paper printers, there do not appear to be, in spite of centuries and centuries of practice, not in any ancient Grimoire, nor in any arcane Book of Shadows, nor in any secret oral tradition, any spells for getting rid of candle wax.

And, you know, if we were truly a practical, real-world, experience-based religion, I figure that, as much as we use candles, some bright Witch, somewhere along the line, would have come up with a spell to make candle wax simply disappear.

I am just saying.

Picture found here.

Wishcraft