Meditation, Trance, and Vision

 An Introduction

(By Holy Wisdom's comfort, I hope I don't have to write one of these again...)

In the wisdom traditions of world Paganism and polytheism the work of ritual worship and devotion is almost always accompanied by the practice of mental training and meditation. Practices of ritual invocation and devotion are perhaps more common in the religious life of regular people. The work of training the mind, and using it in a focused way to support spiritual practice is more often the work of priests, monks and those with a formal dedication to their path. In modern practice it is my advice that all those who seek the blessings of the Old Ways will practice at least a measure of these traditional mental and spiritual skills.

There are many benefits to be gained from meditation and mental training practices. Leaving aside the mythic and ritual considerations that are the focus of this work, we can mention the psychological and emotional benefits that modern science clearly says can be gained from meditation. Relaxation, stress reduction and relief, and improved cognitive function are all results well-supported by research. In the whole realm of religion, magic and spiritual practice if you do nothing than to learn and practice meditation regularly and skillfully you will have done yourself a great service.

In the practice of ritual worship and the building of relationship with the Powers the ability to calm the emotions, focus attention and clearly visualize is vital to the generation of personal spiritual experience. It is common in modern thinking to dismiss religious ritual as ‘empty gesture’. This, I think, is largely due to the loss of these mental skills in western religious training. Literalist thinking is no more valuable to ritual than it is to scripture, and the expectation that spiritual ritual will simply “work like magic” can only result in disillusionment. Powerful, well-spoken words and meaningful, well-performed actions must be accompanied by focused, well-structured mental work for a ritual to be whole.

To be more metaphysical, it is the internal mental structures of ritual – the visualized energies and presences that form the bridge between the material symbols of the spiritual world that we use in ritual, and the Inner realities of spiritual persons and powers.  Through our well-structured mental participation the gods and spirits can step through, closer to our common lives. In the same way with our Inner Vision we can perceive and direct the ‘energies’ of Land and Sky, both in ourselves and in the outer world. Here we approach what might be called the ‘magical’ or ‘occult’ (i.e. hidden) aspect of spiritual practice. Even without such considerations the value of trance and meditative work is undeniable, and vital to ritual practice.

Spiritual teaching is full of discussion of the ‘real’ meaning of meditation and the place of ‘altered states’ or ‘trance’ in spiritual work. Sects have divided and many a scholastic duel been fought over the angels-on-pinhead minutia of these topics. I will present simple descriptions or definitions of several core terms, before we move on to practical method.

• Trance (or ‘altered states of awareness’) is the most general term. It refers to any deliberate effort to focus the mind away from the common stream of perception and mental chatter. It is characterized by the withdrawal of attention from immediate sensory environment, relaxation of the body, a strongly focused attention, and a sense of full and immediate involvement that quiets self-criticism. That is, basic trance is relaxation + concentration + non-judgement. It is possible to practice this state as a goal in itself, but basic trance is almost always the set-up for some further deliberate act of will.

• Meditation is the deliberate and maintained withdrawal of attention from the stream of chatter-thought. Meditation often employs basic trance by making that calm, mentally-motionless state the focus of concentration. Meditation of this type teaches us that our self-talk is separate from our essential self-awareness, and contributes to discernment and perspective. It helps us learn to step back from our immediate ‘programmed’ mental and emotional responses, a skill which can be valuable in dealing with the Powers. Many mystical systems have made variations of this kind of meditation one of their central practices or sacraments. To me it is one useful technique among many, but an important basis for further spiritual skills.

• Vision Pagan religion, mysticism and magic has almost always employed deliberately-constructed visualizations – the use of ‘imagination’  - to give access to deeper spiritual realities. This often involves a deeper or tighter level of focus – a ‘deeper trance’ in which envisioned scenes, images and forces mingle with sense perception. In full visionary ‘journeying’ the body may be still while the mind travels in vision. Such deeper trances are seldom part of ritual worship. However the use of conscious vision to enhance invocation, energy-work and ritual is an important part of effective practice.

• Energy-Work Modern Paganism has developed the “energy model” of magic to a fairly high degree. To a degree this is a special adaptation of Vision work, in that one is generating the sensory experiences of flowing energies, including visual models. In this notion the spiritual Powers are understood as impersonal ‘forces’ or ‘energies’ that can be manipulated by will and imagination. Many modern Pagans might describe their whole practice as about the ‘magical energies’ of the cosmos, even describing the gods as energies. While these ideas were never part of traditional ways there are several basic techniques that fit well with traditional symbols and forms. Especially ‘Grounding and Centering’, in which ‘spiritual energies’ are contacted and organized in the self, has value both as a follow-up to basic trance and as a self-healing technique.

It is sometimes argued that, in old times, community and home ritual did not include the deliberate induction of altered states of awareness. This true, and the use of scripted trance-induction in modern ritual is certainly an innovation. I argue that it is an extremely valuable one, which replaces a vital element that would otherwise be missing.

In a traditional society the rites, customs, sacred places and symbols are a part of the cultural fabric of life. With an implicit acceptance of the reality of spirit forces and human ritual the sacred things become invested with an automatic ability to produce changes in consciousness. Simply to come into the Ring of Stones, or before the Ancient Fire, or, later, into the Grand Cathedral would have been to enter a new mental space, where gods and spirits might find entry.

Moderns have no such mechanism available for our efforts to make religion in our back-yards and living-rooms. We must, I think, replace that cultural entrancement with deliberate efforts to alter awareness. The addition of deliberate entrancement and mental focus exercises to ritual works can only provide a deeper and more complete spiritual experience.

New Audio Meditation Releases

So, I've been digging in my files, and discovered that I had a couple of solid products I could release. 

The second "Training the Mind" album is less of a coherent 'workshop' than the first. It contains 11 exercises from the Nine Moons training program, but I left out the expository and set-up material that I included in the first suite. A slightly more advanced set of exercises assumes that the student knows their uses. 

The texts are explicitly from the Book of Nine Moons. Included:

• Blood, Breath & Bone; basic entrancement exercise

• Exercises for basic, or 'open' meditation and for contemplation meditation

• The full Daily Shrine Work, with meditation

• The Caher Draoí - Druid's Fortress - an energy-working with the Two Powers.

• A contemplation meditation on the Druidic Cosmos.

• An introduction to "Rising in Vision" - standing out of the body for vision-travel and work.

• Two files of vision and invocation to the Earth Mother and Gate Keeper. The first gives the vision, and then recites the full invocation. Students can follow either in text, or hands-free, repeating the ritual words. The second removes the ritual text-voice, for those who prefer to work without it.

• The final file also supports the 'Audience with the Earth Mother and Gatekeeper' from the Nine Moons work. It is to be used after the Blessing has been drunk, as a final contemplation and attunement.

This suite of exercises is aimed at students who are familiar with achieving basic trance and focused attention. Students just beginning meditation or trance practice should work the first collection first.

The second offering presents a full ADF-style simple Rite of Offering, with full trance-guidance in the "Inner Work" components of that rite. The trance-guidance takes the student from mental preparation in the opening prayers, through awareness of the Worlds and Hallows, to the Opening of the Gate.  Visions are suggested for the Kindreds Offerings, and a full guidance is given for receiving a good blessing.

The same script is presented twice, once with a second voice giving the actual ritual speech, and once with the ritual-speech sections left silent. The first allows students to work the rite 'hands-free' as they learn.

For students of Our Druidry this offers a level of explanation and deepening of the rite that  is hard to come by in printed instruction.

Both of these, as well as the first Training the Mind collection, are available at my Bandcamp shop, here.

Mind-Training Audio Release.

I have finally arranged a digital home for my old trance and meditation workshop. This 75-minute recording is a complete workshop in basic mental skills for magic and Paganism. It begins with the Complete Breath and Progressive Deep Relaxation, offers a basic pattern for developing a pre-ritual entrancement routine, and teaches a pattern of energy-work based on balancing Underworld and Heavens energies in the body. Each exercise is taught in a fully guided, scripted induction, framed in set-up and follow-up advice.

This is basic material. If you have been struggling to understand the experiences of relaxation, basic trance and the Two Powers, guided exercises offer a reliable means. On this foundation many other magical and spiritual practices are built.

As a single workshop it could fill a 90 - 120-minute slot with breaks and discussion, and be fairly challenging. It can also be used in 15 - 20 minute segments in a series for group or personal training.

Buy it here, and thanks.

Spring Updates

• Trancework Class at Aradia’s Garden:

 

This is a prototype of a new sort of public working which I’m working on. At.
Anyway, it should be juicy.

• The Great Book has now reached the half-way point. It will only be offered in this form (and for the foreseeable future) until Beltaine of this year. Keep an eye out for Lulu discounts and get your coffee-table tome of Druidic Magic soon!

 • Spring Me, Dammit! It’s still cold here, snow on the ground. I’ve got important gravel to shovel around the old patch here – I want at least a string of days above freezing soon. Just putting in my order… this year’s waitress seems surly…

Nevertheless it will soon be be spring, and I’ll be keeping the seasonal rites this weekend, actually in a Hellenic fashion, as an experiment by one of our Grove folks. There’s blessed little Gaelic spring-lore anyway.

There is rather more English lore, anglo-saxon in style, and a bit of modern Irish as well. I’ve collected some of it in a little playlist here:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT_vcDq6zUM&list=PLec84Qzs86ZioJpITFUe-SNkCAWFl04-D

This is nothing scholastic – I assembled it for my druid bro Mike from FB. There’s some countryside stuff and a Stan Rogers cut thrown in along with a Liam & Tommy item. On that first clip, that’s “The Copper Family” the Carters of British folk preservations. Note the multi-generational gang.

May your spring be sweet and lovely, and the blossoms promise fine fruit.

The Third Power

A Natural Evolution of Druidic Practice.

(I’m indebted to Fox for setting this idea into plain view in my mind at Wellspring some years ago. None of this is his fault, though…)

We have used the Two Powers of Underworld and Heavens, Chaos-potential or Ordering-energy as a motif for ‘grounding and centering’ for some years now. Along with the practical benefits of the model, it has developed some cross-over with our cosmological and mythic models. The Two Powers correspond neatly to the Underworld and Heavens, the Fire and Well. That, however, leaves an obvious place for a Third Power, that would correspond to the manifest world. There seems, to me, an obvious way to express this idea in grounding and centering, and in¬ ritual. That is through the principle of vibration, expressed in sound.

It seems to me that throughout the IE world the idea of a core cosmic vibration principle is expressed as sound, as the word and as their many echoes and sympathies. My recent reading discovered the pre-Hindu Vedic idea of ‘Brahman’ to be ‘the power of mantric sound and vibration’, i.e. the cosmic underlying hum, or Om. When the Brahmin takes the sacred words of ritual into his mouth, he becomes himself an expression of the cosmic vibration, and so can work his will in ritual. This seems to me to resonate nicely with what we know of ‘words of power’ among the Greeks with their strings of sacred vowels, and even with the seership and active magic of the poet-singer-magicians of the Celts, Hellenes and Balts. It is by attuning to the Power of Sound, and expressing that cosmic power in the Note, in the Word, in Speech that we can attune to a core, impersonal principle of holy existence.

Such a model opens us to the notion of viewing all manifest existence – all that lies between the Deepest and the Highest – as varieties of vibration in pattern. This corresponds nicely with some of the more arcane of ancient philosophies. It also happens to correspond handily to present-day scientific models, always a pleasant thing in a theology. I think that at this stage in our Druidic examination of this interesting ancient concept we should avoid constructing any specific doctrine or mythic image about it, and just approach it as a practice, as a visualization, an exercise and a meditation, and see what results we get.

As a practice it is so easy to introduce sound into grounding/centering/empowering exercise, and there are so many ways to do it. The most common method, used throughout the Neopagan world, is intonation. Sometimes called ‘Oming’, from its most popular syllable, this is simply the expression of the feeling of the Two Powers in the body as a vocal hum, vowel-tone or other wordless or nearly-wordless sound. The uninhibited use of sound vibration in this way produces a very entrancing feeling of physical and vision-power joining as one. It is quite common for any Pagan circle to end its G&C exercise with an ‘Om’ – that gives the whole thing an IE rationale that fits a familiar Neopagan ritual trope.

My own favorite way to make a wordless intonation is to vibrate the vowels of my own language. The idea of the vowels as expressive of spirit seems pretty widespread in IE thought, and is explicit in Hellenic magical words. One might also use the vowel set from the Hearth language of one’s choice. Most IE languages have more than English’s conventional 5 vowels (so does English, my speech-therapist wife informs me…) – sometimes a symbolically convenient seven or nine.

The Third Power could also be expressed in words. A proper invocation, a proper chant or incantation, a spoken ‘word of will’ are all ways of bringing your inner understanding and intention into manifestation.¬¬ Those who cannot see themselves as ‘singers’ may wish to use a spoken charm as an expression of the union of the Two Powers in the self. There is, however, great symbolic value in the physical effect of an intonation felt in one’s very flesh. Even charms with words can be intoned rather than just spoken – and I strongly encourage experimenters not to think of the process as ‘singing’, but simply to seek sounds that make the bones vibrate.

In my wanderings in Gaelic lore I came across the Irish term ‘Dord Fían’ [Irish dord, buzzing, droning, intoning] The war-chant or cry of the Fianna of Fionn mac Cumhaill. It is described in stories as being low on the musical scale, often delivered with a bass voice. This term ‘dord’ (pro: dor’d) seems convenient to me, and I have been using the term ‘dord draoi’ (dor’d dree) - meaning ‘magic intonation’ or ‘druid’s buzz’ – to refer to this Third Power intoning.

Depending on how you work with the presence of the Two Powers, you may find certain visualizations useful as well. It has long been my own custom to do an exercise in which I bring the Waters of the Deep into my cupped hands, overflowing as they flow. Into the Waters I bring the Fire, and envision it flaming atop the water. As I increase my focus, and strengthen the flow of the Two, they have always seemed to me to become a sort of Third Power – a plasma or ether composed of the Fire and Water. I have found that beginning an intoning allows me to sort-of unify and expand this very mechanical dual symbol into a kind of vibratory fire and water field that is useful in many ways. In the same way it increases the integration of the Two in my whole body.

So, I offer the idea, and with it a revised ‘grounding, centering and empowerment’ exercise for discussion. I would recommend experiments with this exercise to those who have become familiar with the Two Powers as we have been using them.

Centering in the Three Powers

• Breathe deep and find your peace, perhaps by the bone, blood and breath technique.

• Remember the Underworld Power, and use your breath and will to draw the Underworld Power into yourself. Feel yourself filling with the Waters, allowing them to flow through you as they will.

• Remember the Heaven Power, and use your breath to draw the Light and Fire into yourself. Feel the Light filling the Waters, flowing with it.

• Remember that sound is vibration, and that vibration makes the form and substance of all things. Feel the Light set the Water to vibrating, making patterns of waves, shapes and, in fact making you – your flesh, even your mind and spirit, all made of varying and interweaving patterns of the Light and the Shadow in union.

• Pay attention to the way the Water and Fire join together. Think of their joining as a sound. What hum or buzz or chord would their work together make? Use memory and imagination to hear the sound the Powers make, as they exist as you and your surroundings.

• Breathe deep, and allow yourself to begin to hum softly. Lips mostly closed, just make a sound, and let it settle into a level that feels comfortable. Hum more loudly, and perhaps search for a note that puts a vibration in your chest as you make it. When in doubt, begin with one of the deepest pitches you can find – growling and breathing is a good way to start, but let the sound rise louder in you as you find a level.

• Breathe deep and with at least three breaths, make as solid and vibrating a note as you can with your voice. Don’t hesitate if pitch or tone varies – keep your voice and will working together to find that feeling of vibration in the body and spirit.

• You might wish to conceive the three intonations as vibration in the Three Cauldrons, or in some pattern like:

Vibration of the Waters: Reaffirming inwardly the connection to the Underworld

Vibration of the Fire: Reaffirming inwardly the connection to the Heavens

Vibration of the Self: Setting the two into shape by the Third Power

• This last breath could end with the Water and Fire flowing and shining in the hands, as we sometimes do.

Two Powers on Youtube

I've posted a couple of recorded guidance exercises for our Druidic Two Powers exercises. They are available at my Youtube channel. Expect more teaching vid over the next season. The longer one is a fairly full induction with relaxation and entrancement up front. The shorter is more of a pre-ritual entrancement charm, meant for those who have become facile at calling the flow of Earth and Heaven. Here's that shorter one for the record:

Trance and Evocation

One more teaser for the Book of Summonings.
The topic of trance and imaginal vision is much debated in modern grimoire-magic circles. I understand the position of those who assert that a combination of the rhythm and focus of the rites themselves with the direct power of the spirits can provide all the vision or presence of the spirits that might be needed. However, I am mainly on the side that asserts that modern people can benefit from deliberate trance induction and imaginal leading in making contact with the Others.
Here's an excerpt from the single article on trancework and mental exercise in the Book of Summonings. (I actually think the article is my best job yet of constructing a concise set of practices to build skill in the kind of trance vision that supports spirit contacts.)

The Sorcerer’s Eye – Trancework for Spirit Arte

In the work of spirit art the question of how the spirits will or won’t appear to the magician is often discussed. Books of magic often make it their business to describe the appearance of their beings, and sometimes to discuss the mechanisms by which the spirits appear. As these old writings have been interpreted by modern mages several types of spirit appearance are commonly described:
• Material manifestation. In the most traditional descriptions, the spirits are said to gather bodies of the subtle elements of the air, of mist or smoke, and thus be visible to the material eye. While some schools place a great deal of emphasis on this kind of manifestation, we will treat it as a bonus, which indicates an especially strong connection with a spirit. It is good to follow tradition and let your Fire of Sacrifice generate a good sweet smoke, but material manifestation isn’t required for a successful conjuring.
• Manifestation in vision. This is probably the most common method used world-wide by shamans, priests and mages. In this manifestation the spirit makes itself present through the imaginative faculty of the mage, as a spontaneous or willed envisionment. In many variants this includes sleeping dream-states, but it also includes a variety of waking dreams and visions. In some traditions the rites, herbs and work of the invocation are expected to spontaneously generate the required trance-states, but in others the imaginative faculties are deliberately cultivated. This system is written with the latter approach in mind.
• Manifestation by effect. This is also an extremely common method of dealing with the spirits. When the invocations are well-worked the mage may perceive the presence of the spirit by a feeling. This can vary widely - a sense of peace or fear or comfort or alarm that comes to mean that the spirit is present. Often the sorcerer simply proceeds with the spell, confident that the spirits are hearing her, and their presence is then judged by the outcome. Divination is a direct means of seeking to commune with the spirits by effect. The spirit is perceived as present when the divination tool says so, and when communication happens.
In this system we will use a combination of deliberate waking-dream trancework with observation of effects and divination. If and when a material manifestation occurs, these will have made you ready.
The work of learning to focus and manage the impulses of the mind is a topic for a different instruction. In fact here in this grimoire we can give only the simplest set of exercises. These can, if practiced, lead to sufficient skill to enhance the effect of the rites. The alliance rites, especially, depend on the ability to enter a Threshold Vision and see and speak with images of the spirits.

The Threshold Realm
One of the primary spiritual powers of Druidry is the Power of Seeing. In the later folklore of the Gaels we hear of an da sheiliagh – the double-sight or second sight. That sort of seeing is commonly used to discern events at a distance, but there are also tales of the ability to see the Other Folk, their halls and lands and works. In this spirit arte, we will seek to draw the spirits close enough to our common world to be seen with this Inner eye.
In many kinds of trance and vision exercises the seer enters an imagined series of landscapes and environments. However we will use vision is a somewhat different way – we will establish an Inner vision, as part of the ritual space in which we work, and the events of the rite will then play out in both the material and the vision eyes of the magician. We will consider this half-constructed, half-discovered imaginal world to be a Threshold, a place Between the common world and the independent reality of the Other Places. This avoids the risk of taking our own imagined visions too seriously, yet reminds us that the spirits can arrive in that place as surely as we can. The forms we see (and make) in the Threshold may or may not be the ‘true’ forms of the spirits but that need not prevent us from speaking to them through those forms. The Threshold is a medium for reflection both of our common world and of the Other realms beyond.
While we may consciously shape and influence it, the Threshold realm exists without our conscious making. Just as the landscapes of dream occur as if subjectively real so the places of Threshold are often waiting for us when we arrive. Just as in a lucid dream we can shape events and places, but the life of the Threshold realm goes on, even around our conscious constructions.
It is this state of strange awareness, where the magician exists as a symbol of himself, and the symbols of the rite may move and speak as beings, which allows the spirits easy access to our awareness. The mage learns to stand strong in the Threshold, and to deal directly with the spirits, even while remaining physically active in the rite, making offerings, singing and speaking aloud. In the simplest form of the Threshold Double Sight there is no distinction between the ‘vision body’ of the mage and the material body – it is simply that the eyes of vision are open and the hands of vision are working.

Why Do We Need Trance?
It is worthwhile to ask ourselves how these techniques relate to traditional patterns of magic. Pre-modern writing about magic seems to assume that visions will simply occur when the conditions are right. There is very little discussion of states of mind or of methods to induce proper states of mind, beyond theological notions of ‘righteousness’ or ‘holiness’.
I believe that the distinction lies in the kind of world in which the ancient mage lived, and the kind in which we live today. For the ancients mental access to imaginative states and spontaneous visions seems much more a part of common life. The low levels of mental stimulation, lack of artificial light and constant presence of fire and smoke, along with a strongly oral culture and many other aspects of pre-technical living, would have inclined to a strong and well-developed imagination. This imagination would have come into play as the magician immersed himself in the symbols and ideas of his system, producing envisioned events of dreamlike power.
In contrast, modern minds have been taught a strong separation between imaginal content and ‘real’ or significant events. We are taught to disregard our dreams, to dismiss our imaginary playmates, and to distinguish plainly between self-generated ‘fiction’ and accepted fact. We live by an industrial clock rather than by the rise and set of the sun, and sleep in prescribed doses. For such as us, it simply makes sense to use specific techniques to induce trance states that can replicate the more naturally-occurring trances of traditional peoples. Thus, I hold with the importing of techniques of mental discipline and vision into the traditions of ritual spirit arte.

The Charm of the Worlds

In the work of trance and contemplation that I call the Nineteen Working, the student is led through a series of visualizations meant to progressively create the Pagan cosmos model in and around the meditating Druid. Inside that vision the Druid then expands awareness and experiences a glimpse (or more) of a sense of oneness with all manifest existence.
This practice has several goals. First it opens and harmonizes the individual mind, providing a sense of scale concerning the individual and the cosmos. Second it allows the human magician to experience a bit of the awareness with which the Gods see the worlds – the non-local oceanic experience of existence. In practical work with spirits, my opinion is that being able to produce this state, and drawing the spirits into it, creates a sense of awe and authority for the magician. When the magician can produce in herself the sort of Unity that defines the awareness of the Gods, she gains status and power among the spirits.
If you have been working the Nineteen Working regularly, you will be growing more and more adept at producing this expanded awareness. As with most spiritual practices, that which has been learned in a ‘long form’ can then be worked in a shorter form, in which the entire work is recapitulated in a convenient, focused exercise.
The target state could be described in a trance such that below. I don’t know whether I’d recite the description aloud – it’s rather redundant with the charm. I prefer to simply establish the state through memory and trance, and then affirm/confirm it with the charm. Here’s the set:

I am seated in the Center of Worlds, and my Da Fein is enshrined in my heart. I am like the World Tree, with my roots in the Underworld and my branches in the Heavens. The Waters and the Light flow through me and shine in me. Around me are arrayed the Three Realms – Land, Sea and Sky, and these, and the heavens and the deeps, and even my own Da Fein are all made of the Nine Elements, the flesh of the Mother of All. Into this all-pattern, I extend my awareness. As I am aware of my face, I am aware of the lights of the sky. As I am aware of my flesh and bone, of the beating of my blood, I am aware of the stone and soil and sea. As I am aware of my breath, I am aware of the wind. My mind stops paying attention to my little shape of flesh, as my spirit opens into the greater Worlds of which I am merely a small part. As my awareness expands, my attention leaves my body, and I say:

The Worlds are in me, and I am in the Worlds
The Spirit in me is the Spirit in the worlds.
I am One with the World Tree, in the Sacred Center.
With the Two Powers in me
With the Three Realms surrounding me,
And the Cauldron of Wonder within me.
I reach into the Four Airts in wisdom and magic, strength and life
And my substance is the very substance of the worlds,
Nine things in one, and one thing in many.
The Worlds are in me, and I am in the Worlds
The Spirit in me is the Spirit in the worlds.

Catching Up on Meditation Instruction

Ya know, I've rewritten instructions for a basic course in meditation, mental discipline and trance so many times, but I seem to have missed a basic element that I actually use personally all the time. Students complain regularly about the effort of 'silent' meditation, focusing on no particular thing but just letting the mind flow and become calm. Many such students can benefit from this form, in which a specific focus is chosen. The focus can have actual idea content to 'meditate on' during the work.

I know some teachers hold that only one sort of method - the silent sort - is 'really' meditation. That's all too doctrinal for me, and contemplation meditation of this sort may be a fine way for students to get used to sitting silently doing only mental activity.

In any case, this is catch-up, and will end up in the new month 1 of the Nine Moons. I *am* getting back to work... expect more stuff soon...

Contemplation Meditation
In Contemplation Meditation you choose a specific pattern or symbol as the focus of your attention. In many cases the symbol – such as the Hallows, or the image of a God – may be physically present. It is also common to contemplate a mental construct image. You visualize, imagine or conceive the symbol in your mind, and observe it as if it were in front of you.
In this exercise the goal is similar to Open Meditation. You intend to keep the symbol always the entire focus of your attention. You may find your mind ‘thinking about’ the symbol – your task is to return attention directly to the object of Contemplation, without attachment to the flow of consideration about it. In this way we hope to allow the reality of the symbol to enter our awareness directly, and deeply. There is always time to think about these matters – meditation is a time set aside for other mental goals.
The technique of Contemplation is core to most of the higher-end of ritual and magical trance. As you work your way through ritual the ability to address each action with a whole and focused mind, to experience each thing for its unique power, is key to effective results. You learn to be in the presence of the Gods themselves, while maintaining the Peace and Power of your own Center.

Three Primary Contemplations
1: The Two Powers. You will develop the ability to easily bring the Two into your awareness, and you can then use their flow and circulation as the object of Contemplation. Set the circulation to turning in yourself, and allow your breath to keep the flow as you turn the focus of your attention to the feel and experience of the Two. Without attached consideration, allow yourself to observe the flow and shine, at peace. Each time you find yourself following a ‘train of thought’, simply return your attention to the continuing flow of the Two. Finish with balance and a blessing.
2: The Hallows. In this you will meditate with open eyes, focusing your attention on your fully operative Hallows of ritual. You will sit before your shrine or ritual arrangement, with the Fire lit, the Well blessed and the tree and all cleansed with Fire and Water. You allow your gaze to fall on the whole pattern of your ritual tools and symbols, experiencing their form and meaning without attachment to any flow of thought. Finish with balance and a blessing.
3: Nature Contemplation. This practice is described in the Dedicant’s work, but it should certainly be part of your regular practice. Find a place where you can observe a bit of nature, preferably with no visible thing obviously made by humans. You might choose a specific great tree, or a stream or other water, or any natural spot, but it is good to practice this also in more ordinary natural settings. You find a seat and with your Peace and Power on you allow the reality of the place to be the object of your contemplation, without attachment to idea or emotion, to beauty or ill. Finish with balance and a blessing.

The Practice
The Shrine is set with an object for contemplation – a symbolic card or image, a deity, flame, or the Three Hallows themselves. This technique can be applied to music as well, though music may be more inductive to reverie than to concentration. Contemplation can also be fixed on a phrase or an envisioned image, but to begin it is best to contemplate a material object.
1: Basic Trance: The Blood, Breath and Bone Exercise
• Stand or be seated firmly, spine erect, arms able to relax.
• Take three Complete Breaths and continue to breathe.
• Become aware of your body, where you are supported on the ground by your firm bones. Be aware of your bones, holding you upright as you feel your flesh relax.
• Continue to breathe fully, and focus attention on the sound of the breath. Concentrate inward, listening only to the sound of your breath.
• Turn your attention inward, and hear and feel the beating of blood in your veins. Feel the subtle pulse, as your breath flows and your bones uphold you.
• Continue this pattern as you open your eyes. Allow yourself to remain relaxed, focusing only on your Blood, Breath and Bone.
• Recite this charm:
Bone uphold me
Breath inspire me
Blood sustain me
In this holy work.

• Return to silent breathing and listening within.

From this state there are two basic kinds of meditation with which to begin your work. Ritual actions can also be performed, while maintaining Basic Trance state. In this case we continue to:

2: Meditation
• Continue your basic trance, settling peacefully into blood, breath and bone.
• Open your eyes, and bring your gaze gently upon the object of your contemplation.
• Allow your gaze to focus on the object of contemplation, and only on that object, concentrating your attention to that single object or symbol. Just as in Open Meditation you focused on your breath, allowing all thought to flow by ungrasped, so in Contemplation Meditation you focus your attention on a powerful symbol, and allow only considerations and perceptions of that symbol to fill your mind.
• First always return to the material form of the object, its real presence. From there you may carefully open to ideas concerning the object. This will inevitably lead to associated thought. Whenever that happens, simply return your awareness to the visible (or audible) form of the object.
• The goal is to extend the periods in which your awareness is wholly occupied by a single object, especially one with spiritual or symbolic meaning.
• When the time is sufficient, close your eyes and return to basic trance, then close.

3: Closing
• Always end the session of meditation formally, with the recitation of a closing charm and/or other formal gesture.
The blessings of the Holy Ones be on me and mine
My blessings on all beings, with peace on thee and thine
The Fire, the Well, the Sacred Tree
Flow and Flame and Grow in me
Thus do I remember the work of the Wise.

A Meditation on the Lord of Wisdom

Here's the next in the set of meditations and essays that I'm doing to examine potentials for 'mystical' meaning in ADF's Order of Ritual. For these first efforts, I decided to create visualization and contemplation meditations for the deities, while using essays and less 'worshipful' excercises for the abstract principles. I'll be writing some exercises for the Three Hallows directly. In the meantime here's the partner work to the Earth Mother item given below.

Let the Druid come before the Shrine, and enter a basic trance. Work a simple opening rite and compose the Vision of the Lord of Wisdom, thus:
• Envision the Lord of Wisdom, the Keeper of Gates, before you. See his towering figure, huge above a crossroad in the mist, feet floating above the road. He is slender and strong, dressed only in an open robe of white that billows in the moving air. His face is youthful, but his long hair and beard are snowy white. His left hand is raised, palm forward, and in his right hand he bears a shining white wand with a flame at its tip.
• Around his head shines a nimbus of every color and pattern, filled with every sign and letter of wisdom, shining around his being. His forehead shines with a wondrous light, with a flickering flame in the center. He stands at the crossroad, and you see that every road of it stretches away to another crossroad, and another. At each the Lord stands, in reflection outward, standing at the Center of All Ways, the Fire at the Center of the World.
Make a simple offering of whiskey or incense, or as you can, nine times, as you recite this hymn three times:
Lord of Wisdom
Wanderer on the Roads
Keeper of Gates and Ways
Priest of the Sacred Grove
I make due offering to you
(Offering given)
Because you teach wisdom
Because you guide spirits
Because you reveal secrets
I make due offering to you
(Offering given)
Lord of the Twilight
I worship your cunning
Keeper of Gates
I worship your might
Teacher of Heroes
I worship your wisdom
Lord of Secret Knowledge, inspire my mind with the Elder Ways
Keeper of gates, accept my sacrifice!
Renew your vision of the Gatekeeper and abide for a while in contemplation of that vision. Then proceed thus:
• Contemplate the shining presence of the Lord of Wisdom for a time. When his presence feels real to you then envision yourself seated at the crossroad with the gatekeeper behind you, his aura surrounding and interpenetrating you. You gaze along the roads and you see yourself at every crossing point, your awareness extending outward along the Infinite Paths. Feel your extending presence, out through the whole Web of Worlds. Abide for a while in contemplation of this vision.
• When you are ready, allow the whole vision, the Gatekeeper, the Web and your own form to shrink down and to become equal to your own head. Let the wisdom, knowledge and cleverness, the freedom to pass every barrier be concentrated in you. Feel the presence of the Gatekeeper shining in you, within the boundaries of your seated form. Abide for a while in contemplation of this vision.
• Finally, allow the image to grow again, bringing all the reflections of yourself firmly together in your material presence. Allow the form of the Gatekeeper to grow larger and larger, attenuating to become one with the light and air.
Renew your center, balancing all once again within you, and recite a simple ending charm, such as:
The blessings of the Holy Ones be on me and mine
My blessings on all beings, with peace on thee and thine
The Fire, the Well, the Sacred Tree
Flow and Flame and Grow in me
Thus do I remember the work of the Wise.

A Meditation on the Mother of All

In the process of staring at the next phase of work on the Nine Moons, I have decided to write a series of short things focusing on the possible 'mystical' potentials of the elements of the Druidic Order of Ritual. By mystical, I will continue to mean concerned with the relationship between the personal psyche and transpersonal awareness. The first step in our Order, of course, is honoring the Earth Mother. Rather than write an article, I thought I would create a simple meditation/offering practice. the intent here is to bring the operator's mind into more direct contact with the Mother of all, through symbolic interaction. Let me know what you think.

A Meditation on the Mother of All
Come to your Shrine, open as usual and enter a basic trance. If you wish to open the Gate, do so, then envision the Earth Mother in the Gate:
• See the Mother of All, the Mountain Woman, before you. She is huge as a hill, seated with her back against the World Tree, naked, sitting with her knees drawn up, displaying her cunny and her round belly. Her breasts are great and round, hips and thighs mighty. She holds one hand raised, palm turned toward you, and the other she extends, palm up, as if in offering or receiving. Her face is beautiful, eyes kind and wise, and she smiles lovingly.
• Around her head shines a nimbus of light, gold and silver like sun and moon. Vines and trees are her gown, flowers and fruits her ornaments. Her womb shines and flickers with a light like moonlight on moving water. Every beast and bird, serpent and crawling thing are her court as the green of the world grows all around her. To gaze upon her is to feel the unconditional offer of her bounty, and also her challenge to the strong and to the weak.
Make simple offerings of grain or oil, or as you can, nine times as you recite this hymn three times:
Mighty Mother of All
Womb of Life
Source of Plenty
Soul of the Land
I make due offering to you
(offering given)
Because you uphold the World
Because you freely give your Bounty
Because you grant every Blessing
I make due offering to you
(offering given)
Queen of Sovereignty
I worship your Power
Mother of the Earth
I worship your Bounty
Giver of Every Life
I worship your Spirit
Earth Mother, uphold my work as you do the world
Earth Mother, accept my sacrifice!
(offering given)
Renew your vision of the Mother, and abide for a while in that vision. Then proceed, thus:
• Contemplate the wonderful being of the Earth Mother for a time. When her presence feels real to you, envision your own body, seated where you are, as lying within Her Womb. Become aware of your own body, naked beneath your garments. Feel the Mother appear around you, vast, your form an egg among countless eggs, kept safe and warm, filled with potential. Abide for a while in this vision.
• When you are ready, allow the whole vision, both the Mother and your own form, to shrink down and be enthroned in your own heart. Let the love and power and all-flowing generosity, the safety and strength and warmth be concentrated in you. Feel the presence of the Mother shining in you, within the boundaries of your seated form. Abide for a while in this vision.
• Finally, allow the image to grow again, until the seed-self is reunited with your material presence. Allow the form of the Mother to grow larger and larger, attenuating to become one with the land around you.
Renew your center, balancing all once again within you, and recite a simple ending charm, such as:
The blessings of the Holy Ones be on me and mine
My blessings on all beings, with peace on thee and thine
The Fire, the Well, the Sacred Tree
Flow and Flame and Grow in me
Thus do I remember the work of the Wise.

Druidic Mystical Practice Pt 5: The Da Fein

This is the final phase of the large meditation pattern I've been developing, based on several complexes of Celtic symbolism. if you put all the exercises of these sections, 1 - 5 together you have the whole pattern. Coming soon I will give the whole spoken charm together, together with some comment on the overall mystical state I hope it will induce.

In a polytheistic spiritual system, it is possible to be bewildered by the crowd of spirits, of divine beings. If there is an advantage to monotheism, it might lie in its simplicity. Systems that posit a single deity make it easy, at least, to determine where to focus one’s worship. In system where the model of the divine more closely mirrors the patterns of nature, the forest of possibilities can seem daunting.

Practical Paganism addresses this problem by the creation, by individuals, of personal pantheons. Each land, each people, each village, each family hearth, even each individual has a constellation of Gods and Spirits that best suits the needs of their life and circumstances. For an ancient Pagan this process would have been a natural product of their upbringing. As modern Pagans, we work our way from our 20th century upbringings. This can make the process much more conscious and artificial, and perhaps, more difficult.

Pagans seek the divine in many places. We address the Gods and Spirits, we find the divine in a tree or a stone. However, modern Pagans may find it difficult to consider honoring the spirit of a living human as divine – including, of course, ourselves. Some religious and cultural traditions teach that humans are intrinsically unworthy, weak, even depraved or evil, requiring an external divine intervention. Even in secular discourse it seems common to devalue our human nature. Perhaps this is a reaction to the sort of recent western arrogance that considers humankind to be the ‘highest’ of all creatures. In any case, the concept of the divine present in our own human nature is not a common one in our culture.

It seems to me that traditional IE Paganism neither devalued nor overestimated humankind. When the divine can be immanently present in beasts and stones, we cannot think ourselves superior to our environment. Yet humans who do great deeds – or who simply win the love and reverence of their kin - can become objects of worship. Certainly this may happen after death, as ancestors, but it may happen even while alive. The Roman custom of deifying the ‘genius’ – the personal divine spirit – of their emperors after death has been frequently criticized by Christian historians, but it is only a state example of a custom that might extend into any village.

If we have such a divine spirit in ourselves as might be worthy of worship, then making ourselves aware of that spirit and its capacities, and working with it consciously, seems a fine goal for those inclined to spiritual work. Socrates spoke of his daimon – the spirit that advised him in his deeds. Later theurges from Hellenic nations, and various yogis and rishis of the Indic peoples developed detailed methods of approaching one’s internal divine power. We have no specific record of such things among the Pagan Celts – such practice would have reeked of ‘sorcery’ to the monkish chroniclers. It does not seem unreasonable to suppose that Druids, in the course of their searchings into the world, would have sought contact with their own Divine nature.

We must remember that in such a formula we offer worship to our own divine core or crown, not merely to the personality and flesh that we commonly identify as ‘me’. Just as when we offer to a tree we are not worshipping its cellulose and water, so we are not asking any being to worship our meat and mannerisms. It will be to our great advantage to recognize that in each of us there is a true Flame, a true Well of power and wisdom and love. Each of us contains, by right of birth, the divine.

As Druidic Pagans it is proper for us to honor the divine in every place that we find it. Thus it is reasonable for us to begin to learn how to worship out own divine nature, and those of the mortals around us. I cannot say, in this short musing, how such a doctrine may find expression in Our Paganism, but I have included a short poetic charm and exercise which could be added to personal devotions or ceremonies. I expect that the inspiration and genius of our folk will lead us to powerful expressions of the this core Pagan idea.
May we come to know the spark and flow of the divine power in us all!

A Charm for the Divine Self
I am a kinsman of the Fire
I am a child of the Waters
My flesh is holy, born of the holy union
My Spirit is a drop of the Cauldron of Wonder,
A spark of the Divine Fire.
(Place a hand on the forehead)
The Divine Presence is in my head
(Place hand on heart)
The Divine Presence is in my heart
(Place hand on the loins)
The Divine Presence is in my loins.
(Join hand at the heart)
I do honor to the God of my own soul
Shining spirit of my spirit
Font of Wisdom
Spring of Love
Source of Power
I offer to you the worship due to every God
(Open hands wide)
Honor to the holy being that is the Center of my Self
Shine bright and flow deep in me, I pray!

Druidic Mystical Practice Pt 4: The Elements of the World

The Elements of the World – the Druidic Macrocosm and Microcosm.

The principle that the greater world (in Irish, bith - ‘what is’) - both material and spiritual - is reflected in the personal body and spirit of the individual is an Indo-European universal. “As above, so below; and as below, so above” the old aphorism says, and we can find plenty of evidence for the principle in Irish lore. The Irish poems describe a correspondence between the parts of the natural world and the parts of the human body and mind. These parts are called the duile, which means ‘elements’ or ‘components'. (See Searles O'Dubhain's key article on the Duile here) There are several traditional lists of these symbols. We will adopt a ninefold model similar to those current in Neopagan Celtic circles.
• Crown of the Head - Starry Heavens
• Brains - Clouds
• Face - Sun
• Mind - Moon
• Breath - Wind
• Blood - Sea
• Hair - Plants
• Flesh - Soil
• Bone – Stone

We can, with a little divide these into the Three Worlds so that:
Land: Plants, Soil and Stone
Sea: Clouds, Wind and Sea
Sky: Heavens, Moon, and Sun.

The source of these correspondences, in the misty past of Indo-European origins, is said to be the myth of the First Sacrifice, in which the First Cosmic Being is offered, or offers itself, on the altar. From the death of that First Being, and from its body and spirit, the cosmos itself is created. In some versions of the tale this is also the beginning of the work of sacrifice itself, in other versions the Killing is more like war or murder, but in every case the world is then made from the bones, blood, breath and mind.
This being the case it is true to say that, regardless of our form, we are all made of one substance. From Gods to gardens, from ourselves to the stars and stones, we are all made of the Holy Flesh of the First Sacrifice. This is the archaic root of the later metaphysical doctrines of the Hermeticists, and the macrocosm/microcosm complex seems as Gaelic as it is renaissance Italian.
In the previous stages of this work we have created a Sacred Pattern of the cosmos - the Two, the Three and the Four, and focused and channeled the world’s flow into our own bodies and lives with the Cauldrons. In this stage we seek to realize the unity of our personal existence with the greater existence of the worlds. Our flesh is the flesh of the world, our spirits are the spirit of the world – and so is everything else.
Most importantly, from a mystical perspective, our personal spiritual nature is, at the deepest point, still one with the spiritual nature that infuses the whole of existence. The First Person became Impersonal Mind, by dying, and by living, we participate in that Mind. By entering deep into our own awareness, by moving past layers of common thought and focusing on patterns of holy symbol, we hope to have the experience of the all-mind, to expand awareness beyond our self and name, beyond our apparent flesh into the mind and flesh of the Divine World.
As in the previous stage, in this exercise you will build the pattern of vision, and then spend time in contemplation of the pattern. This stage becomes rather different – it is relaxing, opening and dissolving to the constructed self, where before the work had been about consciously constructing and using the pattern of self. You may find your complex of Fire and Water, Worlds and Quarters dissolving into the pattern of the world, or you may simply leave it behind for a time as your awareness expands past its limits. In any case upon finishing the meditation on the whole pattern, and opening up to the oneness with the Elements, you will return to your pattern of Two, Three and Four, with the Cauldrons, before closing the work.

Stage 4: The Elements
Bring the Powers into balance again in yourself, remembering your detachment, remembering your lessons, gently and firmly bringing the Two Powers and the Three Cauldrons into a balanced flow. Remember the vision of the Worlds, and become aware of your flesh as well as you spirit as you work the Duile Attunement.
By the following charm you will turn your attention to the elements of the Worlds, one element at a time. As you are learning the exercise feel free to take each section as slowly as you like, meditating on the union, the co-substance, of your individual existence with the much greater world of All That Is.
Today I open myself
To the Elements of the World.
The first triad concerns the Land. Feel your solid flesh sharing its substance with the stones and roots and growing things of the Land, letting it become you, and you, it.
Eternal stone my bones.
My flesh the warm soil,
My hair the green bounty,
The second triad concerns the Sea. Feel the processes of your material life as interchangeable with the great ebbs and flows of the endless deep, letting it become you, and you, it.
The sea my blood,
My breath the wind,
Cool moonlight my mind,
The third triad concerns the Sky. Feel your reason and emotion and spirit shining and turning among your thoughts, like the eternal heavens. Let it become you, and you, it.
The sun my face,
My thoughts the clouds,
The stars behind my eyes.
Feel yourself vanishing into the world, and the world vanishing into you, but all the while, your core of Fire and Water, your Three Cauldrons, remain balanced and firm, even as your awareness opens.
All the world is in me,
And I am in the world.

on to pt 5

Druidic Mystical Practice Pt3: The Three Cauldrons

The first two phases of this sequence, presented below, are so basic to Neopagan meditation and trance that I have had trouble distinguishing 'basic mental training' from 'seeking mystical experience'. The basic methods of the first two phases of this sequence - Open Meditation, Two Powers Attunement and Middle-realm Centering- are preperatory work for almost any ritual or meditative activity. In the next steps we begin to add material that is specifically Celtic or Druidic in origin. Since the real intention of the whole sequence is a mystical one - we mean to link the personal awareness with transpersonal existence - I'm calling the whole sequence by the above new title.

Part 3: Using the Three Cauldrons
In the very small list of remnants of Celtic culture that suggest actual Pagan mysticism or spiritual symbolism the complex of the Three Cauldrons stands out plainly. Based on the medieval Irish poem the Cauldron of Poesy, we describe three Cauldrons or “boiling places” in the human system, into which the Power of Inspiration can flow and be held. The Cauldrons in each individual may be either empty, half-full or full, and by this is determined how much poetic or spiritual power the individual possesses.
The Three Cauldrons are described as:
1: The Cauldron of Warming, conceived of as located in the belly, is the source of physical and constitutional health and strength. It is born upright in all people, with the potential to be fully filled.
2: The Cauldron of Motion or ‘Vocation’, is conceived of as in the heart. It is the core of the poet’s vision and work, the place where he receives his actual skill and inspiration. It is born in most tipped on its side, able to hold only a portion of the flow.
“The cauldron of motion then, in all artless people is on its lips. It is side-slanting in people of bardcraft and small poetic talent. It is upright in the greatest of poets, who are great streams of wisdom. Not every poet has it on its back, for the cauldron of motion must be turned by sorrow or joy.”
3: The Cauldron of Wisdom is conceived of as in the head. It is the container of the highest spiritual and artistic inspirations. It grants not just poetry but ‘every art’.
The central metaphor for spiritual power or wisdom in the Cauldron of Poesy is Poetic Inspiration. The poet’s ability to produce inspired verse is also his ability to make magic. Throughout this work we will use the metaphor of poetic skill and inspiration as the equivalent of spiritual and magical power, and we will work toward the use of poetry as a core element of ritual and spellbinding.
The majority of the text of the Cauldron of Poesy focuses on the Cauldron of Motion as the vessel that truly holds the poets power. It is born half-tipped, and it is by the deeds and events of human life that it becomes fully upright, able to obtain a full measure of the Mead of Wisdom. In the same way the Cauldron of Wisdom is born tipped on its lip, empty of power, and must be turned. This is described as happening due to powerful emotional events - sorrows and joys - during the course of life.
The Four Sorrows: longing, grief, jealousy and hard travel.
The Joys are said to be twofold: divine joy and human joy. Human joy is fourfold: Sexual delight, physical health, the joy of prosperity from one’s vocation, the joy of success in one’s efforts. Divine joys are the delight of the Blessings of the Gods, and the joy of eating of the Hazels of the Well of Wisdom, as it is said.
These joys and sorrows come from the events of our lives – they are not just from within, but rather they must grow from real experience and relationship with the other. In a modern life, if we have any adventure in us at all, any of that which might make a poet or magician, we will have many of the joys and sorrows described. If we can take them in, process them, boil them up, they become the raw material for our understanding and wisdom.
So in this exercise we use the Cauldrons as anchoring symbols for a wide range of contemplations, focused on our own bodies, lives and spiritual growth. In order to comprehend and digest the joys and sorrows of our lives we contemplate them in formal meditation. By bringing the memory of the events before the mind’s vision, while maintaining the detached perspective of Open Meditation we can process them effectively. So we contemplate in turn the body, the network of our ‘professional’ life, and our spiritual condition.
There’s a word to be said about the presentation of the Cauldron of Motion. In the original poem the heart cauldron is plainly related to the poets life and livelihood, on the deeds that bring inspiration and the rewards of poetic success. For those of us who approach the work intending to be a poet-seer in the old ways, we can simply proceed. For those of us who may have different path in life, whether the warrior or the merchant or another profession, there’s no reason why wisdom and inspiration won’t serve equally well. So we have tweaked the work of the Cauldron of Motion to be more broadly applicable to the ‘vocation’ of whoever might undertake the work.

Fó topar tomseo,

fó atrab n-insce,

fó comair coimseo

con-utaing firse. good is the dwelling of speech,

Good is the well of poetry,

good is the union of power and mastery

which establishes strength.

The Three Cauldrons Attunement
The first two phases of the sequence are performed, the Two Powers are settled into a clear flow in the self, and she establishes herself in her Center. With the Two Powers established in your body, establish thebeginning with your loins.
Envision the Cauldron of Warming low in your Three Cauldrons, belly, see it made of iron, or stone heated by the fire below. intone the name:
Goriath (goh ree ah)
Envision the combined Light and Shadow flowing into your Cauldron of Warming. As it does, open your awareness to your body. Become aware of your flesh and bone, blood and belly and brain, seeking an awareness of your health and wholeness, and, by will, seeing yourself as hale and well in every part.
Envision the Cauldron of Vocation in the heart. See it made of silver and gold, heated be the fire in your heart. Intone the name:
Ernmas (air‘n mahs)
Let the Powers flow into the Cauldron of Movement, and feel your awareness open to your daily life and work, to the deeds and events of your life. Become aware of your place in the world, among kin and folk and the wide world. From the center that is the Cauldron see the webs of relationship and mutuality that hold your life together. See them made strong, whole and helpful.
Envision the Cauldron of Wisdom in your head. See it made of crystal and amber, lit and warmed by the fire above. Intone the name:
Sofhis (so wish)
Let the Two Powers flow into the Cauldron of Wisdom, and open your spirit to your spiritual way and work. As the Fire and Water fill the Cauldron open your mind to the sources of divine awareness in your life. Feel your Allies draw close, and the Divine In You shine and flow, filling you with the Mead of Inspiration.
As you wish, and as you are able, let your mind rest in balance between these three Cauldrons. Broaden your attention to allow the three sets of images to flow and intertwine. In this weaving there may be things to be learned. Understand that these Cauldrons are always in you, always turned or turning, just as the Two Powers always flow in you. Rest and work in this state as long as you like. Conclude with a prayer or gesture of thanks and closure.

on to pt 4

Druidic Mystical Practice Pt 2

So, I know that "Grounding and Centering" is a pretty New Agey sort of term. Nevertheless it seems to me a useful one. Almost all systems of ritual meditation use some form that places the meditator at the center of a balnced flow of energies and/or symbols. Hermetics is full of such things, from the Middle Pillar (one of the primary sources for Neopagan exercises) to the famous LBRP. Both Hindu and Buddhist systems employ four-directions centerings.

I feel like I witnessed quite a large segment of the evolution of 'Grounding and Centering' as a part of Neopagan ritual. When I began working Pagan and magical rites we really had no such practice, and Wiccan groups before, say, 1980 seldom had any formal moment of 'induction' of energy flows (or trance) as part of their ritual outline. Of course the classic Circle Casting is itself a detailed centering rite - if approached with any heightened awareness at all it is a solid spiritual ritual. The problem was that the system had no guaranteed way of producing that heightened awareness. That began to change as Pagans adapted techniques from western and eastern systems.

By the middle of the 1980s some form of formal trance induction, usually involving personal empowerment and/or attunement to 'spiritual energies' was standard in neopagan rites. Regardie's Middle Pillar exercise, in which the light from the spiritual 'heavens' is brought down literally into the body through a series of energy-points along a center line from head to heart to loins to feet. The Hermetic Qabalah provides a convenient 3-tiered (or 3+1) model that has been taken up by many systems. The other core method of 'grounding' is the Tree Meditation (which I first used out of Starhawk's work) which involves envisioning 'earth energy' rising into the body through roots, and flowing out like leaves to circulate into the earth. In my neck o' the woods Selena Fox played a large role in introducing 'energy work' meditation as part of ritual, especially public rites. I began my own practice with Regardie, well before my formal Wiccan work, but really got a charge out of the Tree when I started using it. however it lacked a connection with the bright energy of the Sky, and the tree metaphor just made me want sun on my leaves.

ADF's "Two Powers" model grows from these sources, on a practical level. It combines the Waters and the Fire into one seething juice that connects the self deep and high with the cosmos. Fortunately for us, this model conforms well enough to the symbolic complexes of Indo-European Paganism, which often begins with a primal duality. We use the Two Powers mostly as a technique of ritual trance induction, preparing the minds of our often diverse public congregations for the work. However the technique has more personal applications in practical magic and as a spiritual exercise. The exercises presented below begin with the Two Powers and then add a simple four-directions centering. After years of avoiding quartered symbolism as 'too Wiccan' (sigh) it just seems time to admit that it's an Indo-European universal with plenty of Celtic context.

Here are some excerpts from the chapter on Grounding and Centering from the new project. Incidentally, it presently looks like the first wave of the new project will be a chapbook on the big spiritual exercise of which this is stage 2, combined with an article examining various mystical techniques as they might be applicable to a Druidic Pagan system. I expect to have that out by summer, and to post material from each stage here.

Training ­­­the Mind for Druidry - Pt 2
Grounding & Centering, and Contemplation Meditation
The second stage of training the mind begins with the work called ‘grounding and centering”. In that technique we make ourselves aware of a flow of “spiritual energies” in the cosmos, and balance those energies in our own bodies and spirits. We ‘ground’ ourselves by connecting personal reality with a much larger system that can both empower and backup our own work and we ‘center’ ourselves by organizing the flow of energies in ourselves in a symmetrical and balanced way.

There is a serious discussion to be had about how the ancients might have viewed this concept of ‘spiritual energy’, and whether it occurred at all among the Celts. We see a clear model of it in yogic systems from India, and techniques from that cultural range had a wide distribution among the Wise. There are traces in Irish vocabulary that are suggestive, but we must plainly say that we are adapting a modern magical technique to our Druidic cosmology when we use the Two Powers as ‘energies in the body’.

In the work of ADF’s Dedicant Path (and in many other Pagan basic training systems) we address these energies as the Light of the Heavens and the Waters of the Underworld. The Underworld Power is envisioned as the Waters Under the Earth, in which all the wisdom of the past is dissolved. The Power of the heavens is seen as the Light of the Turning Sky, which brings order, pattern and growth. This duality corresponds to cosmic principles, poles of cosmic structure between which the manifest world appears. They reflect a core Celtic cosmological division of the cosmos into two – Fire and Water, Summer and Winter, Day and Night. Of course such a duality is not a moral opposition – summer and winter are lovers as well as warring knights. This work, like all of the work that follows, is in one way a contemplation of the powers and components of our cosmology. By making the macrocosm of the Sacred Cosmos real in our own spirits we hope to gain in personal understanding, and in the spiritual authority that allows us to interact with the Gods as beings of worth.

Working with the Fire and Water is a core technique of Druidic practical magic, but it also serves as a method of spiritual development. Contemplation of the Two Powers begins the process of expanding the personal mind into transpersonal mythic spaces. The Fire and Water are the primal powers of creation. When we take conscious control of the Two Powers, through imagination and will, we are doing in the microcosm what the Gods and Spirits do in the greater cosmos.

The pattern of symbolic meditation based on the Two Powers begins the recapitulation of the mythic cosmos. In the work of Open Meditation we begin with the Unformed, the Chaos from which order arises. With the Two Powers energy-work we begin the process of manifestation, with the appearance of the core Indo-European duality of Fire and Water.

The practical goal of this stage of energy-work (which was begun, we hope, in the Dedicant’s work) is to learn to bring (awareness of) the Two Powers into the self quickly and surely. In our Dedicant training we provided a detailed text induction. In this phase we learn to establish the flow of the Powers with a will and a few breaths. The goal is to create a state in which the Light and the Shadow are flowing and shining in and through the body in a balanced but free-flowing way. From that base any number of specialized forms and applications of the energies can be devised.

In order to be able to spend working time on actual goals, rather than on inductions, the student must learn to find the balanced poise of the Two Powers in a swift and easy way. If you have worked with the Nine Breaths technique, you will be prepared to move to the Three Breaths method. The Kindling Charm is meant to train the body/mind to bring the Powers into balance with the simple recitation of a charm, accompanied by gesture. As you learn the method you may choose to speak the charm slowly, to the rhythm of three breaths. As you gain experience you will be able to bring the desired balanced energy-state with even a quick recitation of the charm, or with an act of will alone.

Three Worlds and Four Quarters
The next phase of the exercise – expressed very simply in a short charm – is the establishment in the mind of the pattern of the manifest world – the Three Worlds and Four Directions. The Two Powers are the ‘vertical axis’ – rooted deep and crowned high. Around this spindle of light and shadow the Wheel of the World turns.

In our Celtic system we see the ‘horizontal axis’ – the plane of the Middle World – as divided both three-fold and four-fold. First we see the manifest world divided into Land, Sea and Sky. These are the primal Celtic (and IndoEuropean) division of the manifest world. In this pattern the land is the world-island on which our lives are grounded. Surrounding the Land is the Ocean-Sea, the all-encompasing saltwaters, and over all the dome of the Sky holds the turning lights.

In this vision you stand in the center of this mythic triad, in the center of the Land in the Center of the Worlds, as it were. The Land itself is further divided with the cross of the Four Directions. While many systems use a quartered circle, ours does not employ the hermetic ‘elements’ of fire, water, air and earth. In this work we use the symbolism of the four Irish provinces, the various paths and stations of human life, distilled into simple terms in the charm.

The ritual text presented below conjures the vision of the vertical axis in just a few words. We also provide some more detailed exercises . If possible it is best to get out under the sky, to stand or sit perhaps upon a hilltop or a rise and work the exercises in a place where the real horizon and forms of the Land can be seen. The impressions and memories from those exercises will bring depth when you work the quick version of the charm.

Contemplation Meditation
In parallel with Two Powers energy-work we begin the next stage of training and focusing the attention and will. In Open Meditation we focus on an essentially empty symbol, such as the breath, and allow thought to flow by without attachment. In Contemplation Meditation you choose a specific pattern or symbol as the focus of your attention. In many cases the symbol – such as the Hallows, or the image of a God – may be physically present. It is also common to contemplate a mental construct image. You visualize, imagine or conceive the symbol in your mind, and observe it as if it were in front of you.

In this exercise the goal is similar to Open Meditation. You intend to keep the symbol always the entire focus of your attention. You may find your mind ‘thinking about’ the symbol – your task is to return attention directly to the object of Contemplation, without attachment to the flow of consideration about it. In this way we hope to allow the reality of the symbol to enter our awareness directly, and deeply. There is always time to think about these matters – meditation is a time set aside for other mental goals.

The technique of Contemplation is core to most of the higher-end of ritual and magical trance. As you work your way through ritual the ability to address each action with a whole and focused mind, to experience each thing for its unique power, is key to effective results. You learn to be in the presence of the Gods themselves, while maintaining the Peace and Power of your own Center. However, we can begin with much more modest goals

Stage 2 Practice: The Shrine, Meditation & the Two
The Druid seats himself in her seat, facing east if possible. If there can be hallowed Fire and Water, so much the better. Begin your breathing pattern. Find your peace, perhaps using the Bone, Breath and Blood method.
Bless the Water and Fire, as you say:

The Fire, the Well, the Sacred Tree
Flow and Flame and Grow in me
In Land, Sea and Sky, Below and on High,
Let the Water be blessed and the Fire be hallowed.
When you are ready, dip your hand in the Water and sprinkle or lave yourself, then pass your hands through the incense or Fire and bring it onto yourself, as you say:

By the Might of the Waters and the Light of the Fire
Cleansed of ill and bane am I
By the Might of the Waters and the Light of the Fire
Blessed in Land and Sea and Sky

As you cleanse and bless yourself, feel the Water and Fire washing and searing away all that’s not in your true pattern of being.

Resume your center and bring the Two Powers into yourself, swiftly allowing the Waters to rise, followed by the descent of the Light, as you do the Kindling Charm:
Cross your hands on your chest and say:

Powers of the Earth and Sky
Rooted deep and crowned high

Place fingers on forehead, chest and loins in turn, bringing the Two Powers smoothly into each, saying:

Flow and kindle in my head
Flow and kindle in my heart
Flow and kindle in my loins

Cross your hands on your chest, feeling the balanced flow of the Two, and say:

Flow and shine in every part.

Remain with hands crossed on the chest or, if you prefer, extend your arms straight from your shoulders. With the Two rising and falling in you, open yourself to the horizontal plane, to the Three Realms of the world, to the Four Provinces of human power. See the Isle of the land on which you stand, the misty Sea that surrounds on all sides, the dome of the Sky overhead. See the signs of the Four Quarters, if you like – the Wand in the West, the Sword in the North, the Plow in the East, the Harp in the South. Hold this contemplation as you say:

The Land upholds me, the Sea surrounds me, the Sky above me.
Before me bounty, behind me wisdom
On my right hand magic, on my left hand strength
Cross hands again on the chest
For the Cauldron is in me.
And I am seated in the Center of Worlds.

At this time you may wish to pause in a Contemplation Meditation in which you compose yourself seating in the center of the Worlds and Realms, with all the Powers at your hand. This meditation can be maintained as long as you wish, simply experiencing the feel of the Pattern of the Worlds around you, with the Fire and Water in you. When you have finished your meditation practice you should make a simple offering to the Spirits. Light an additional offering of incense, and open your heart in welcome to all the Holy Beings. Say:

Gods and Dead and Mighty Sidhe
Powers of Earth and Sky and Sea
By Fire and Well, by Sacred Tree
Offering I give to ye.
Take time to return your awareness fully and completely to your body and material senses. Even as you remember what you may have gained or learned, allow your awareness to return to common life and breath. Before you rise from your seat, pause for a moment and return to your center in peace. Cross your hands on your chest and say:

The blessings of the Holy Ones be on me and mine
My blessings on all beings, with peace on thee and thine
The Fire, the Well, the Sacred Tree
Flow and Flame and Grow in me
Thus do I remember the work of the Wise.

on to pt 3