My New Little Book - and a Progress Report

So, my friends, here's the first small publication to come out of my writing efforts toward this new Initiate's Book (see below). If you've been reading this blog you'll have seen the series on Druidic Mystical exercises. This chapbook combines those into a single large meditative pattern, and leads through the process of teaching the visualizations and contemplations of the work. It then provides a simple text from which the ritual meditation pattern can be worked. In a second part I've published a shortish essay on methods of producing mystical experience in world systems, and how they might be applied to a Pagan or Druidic system. There's plenty of material that hasn't been seen here.

In the fair warning department, the mystical exercises themselves will end up as part of the Initiate's Book, though not with all the commentary text from this book. The article probably won't end up in the big book.

Click the image to have a look, and I'll have copies at fests through the summer as well.

Progress on the Initiate's Book

Some of you know that I've been working on creating a guide to Druidic magical and theurgic practice that would allow a student to fulfill all the practicum requirements of the ADF's Initiate's Program. I'm setting it up in an ambitious, nearly monastic, work of nine months. For that reason I'm currently in love with the title "Book of Nine Moons". Currently that's getting all the votes from the voices in my head. The book will be set up in nine lessons, giving full scripts and support for the 'Retreat Days' at each phase of the moon. The link above gives my model as I had it a couple of months ago. That model has been juggling itself in my head all season. Persently the outline of the work of the First Moon looks like this:

The First Month:
New Moon:
• Begin Shrine Devotion & Open Meditation (as often as daily, but certainly on Retreat Days).
• Make the Dead and Sidhe Offerings during the day
• Begin the Self-Introduction and the Seelie and Unseelie Mirror exercises in the Journal.
• During the divination, you might choose to ask: “What are my greatest potentials for success?”
• The Evening Working: a Simple Rite of Offering, as you will, worked with full attention to the Inner Work of the rite.
Sixth Night:
• Continue Shrine Devotion & Open Meditation (as often as daily, but certainly on Retreat Days). • Make the Dead and Sidhe Offerings during the day
• Continue journal work.
• Consider doing a full reading for yourself or another on a practical topic. Feel free to do this ‘Open Book’ for some months to come.
• The Evening Working: A Ritual of Unknotting – a rite to remove obstacles from the student’s path, and open her to the good things of the world.
Full Moon:
• Continue Shrine Devotion & Open Meditation (as often as daily, but certainly on Retreat Days). • Make the Dead and Sidhe Offerings during the day
• Continue journal work.
• Consider doing a full reading for yourself or another on a practical topic.
• The Evening Working: A Rite of Self-Blessing – formal Blessing of oneself and one’s path as an initiate, including a hallowing of tools and symbols.
Last Quarter:
• Continue Shrine Devotion & Open Meditation
• Make the Dead and Sidhe Offerings during the day
• Consider doing a full reading for yourself or another on a practical topic.
• The Evening Work: Complete the month’s writing and journaling.

I've been writing this material in various forms over the last months, and last night I put a lot of it together, producing a fast 12,000 words of organized stuff for the First and Second Moons. To complete the First Moon I must write a formal 'Uncrossing' rite (I'm stuck on the poetry just now), and the article on introspection and self-knowledge. The latter i decided just couldn't be left out of even this early stage, even without a formal requirement from the ADF program.

So watch this space for more snippets and stuff, and maybe I'll have the first Three Moons in a draft print later this summer!