Category: Featured

Featured, Holy Wild, Rite & Ritual

Light a Candle to Begin

Alison Leigh Lilly

Christmas eve night, about nine o'clock. Basket slung over one arm and bumping into my hip with every step, I trudge through the snow. The ribbon wound around the basket's slim handle glistens in a hint of milky moonlight, gold thread woven in elaborate patterns through the deep red cloth. In the basket, a red pillar candle and two tapers — scented "seasonal berry" — jostle in a nest of intertwined greens, bits of douglas fir and blue spruce smelling sweetly of bent needles and dried sap; wedged among them, the frankincense sticks, the crystal bowl full of dark sunflower seeds and dried cranberries, the small jar of spring water decorated with silvery snowflake designs and curled bits of blue string. The snow crunches as I feel my way along the un-shoveled path through the park, some of it falling onto the tops of my moccasin-like shoes and slipping down inside to melt against bare skin.

Featured, Holy Wild, story

It was a dark and stormy night…

Alison Leigh Lilly

It is from the east, now, that something new approaches the Byrnecock estate. Along the thin road bordered by hedgerows that cut across the hillsides come a pair of gaslit headlamps, illuminating with their amber light the slanting rain that dashes down through a plume of rising steam. The hedgerows have been thinned by the season to a tangle of bare limbs and would cast long, haunting shadows of grasping phantasms across the dampened earth if not for the low, dense clouds that so thoroughly blot out the moon. The thin, wide wheels of the carriage spin steadily despite the rain, hardly slipping across the slick track of mud and fallen leaves. There is no sad, sodden beast trotting along mournfully before this carriage, no sound of hoofbeats muffled by the wet autumn litter. Instead, a kind of wide, flat cart and on it, a large cylinder of dark metal that sizzles slightly in the downpour. The hiss and sigh of small pistons pumping a series of nested gears on either side quite drown out the low conversation of the occupants who sit, rigid and poised, casting slim silhouettes on the fogged window panes from the dry interior of the cab.

art, Featured, Holy Wild

Steampunk Druidry

Alison Leigh Lilly

About two minutes in to exploring Steampunk as a counterculture movement, it dawned on me — this isn't historical re-enactment. It isn't about the past. It's about now, and the kind of society we want to live in, and the ways in which we want the world to work. It's playful, with room for both the burlesque and the gentile. Anyone who wants a title, can have a title. Anyone more drawn to the 'punk' aspect can play it that way. It turns out that there's room for anyone who wants in, and you don’t even need a pair of goggles. The surface of Steampunk offers a burgeoning fiction genre, an aesthetic that seems to be catching on all over the place, a music scene — sepiacore and chap hop, and no doubt more to come. There's a growing arts and crafts movement within the community, and there are going to be inventors, I have no doubt. There probably are already. Steampunk is about innovation in every area of human endeavour, and it's about doing good stuff, with a social conscience and a sense of humour.

Contemplation & Meditation, Featured, Holy Wild

Dark Moon Waiting

Alison Leigh Lilly

Three nights of waiting, building power under the dark moon. I have done my preparation. I have cleared the space in the waning light. I have drawn the circle around myself in salt and stone, strength and love. The borders of my life are bare. I have released the old attachments that will no longer serve. I have made peace with the yammering beasts and bitches, buried them in the dirt beneath the forest floor, given them to the earth to hold and keep and break open and transform. I have felt the night air cool on my naked skin. Now, I have three long nights of waiting to begin.

Featured, Holy Wild, Theology

Deity Dumped

Alison Leigh Lilly

"She didn't say it in so many words, but I got the distinct impression that she thought we should 'see other people...'" My voice trailed away. Folks sitting nearby in the restaurant who didn't know we were husband and wife probably thought Jeff was helping me through a break-up with my girlfriend. I found myself sobbing. I felt cut off and vulnerable. Even if I'd wanted to honor her, I didn't know how. What ritual forms to use, what offerings to make, what actions to take. The strong intuitive connection that I felt pulling me forward didn't seem to be so tame in any case. She didn't want scripted prayer or the right kind of incense or historically accurate idols on the altar. She wanted me out in the wilds, she wanted me raw and free and dancing with devotion. I was going to have to change my life...

Featured, Holy Wild

Valuing the Spiritual Desert

Alison Leigh Lilly

I haven't meditated in nearly a year. The other day, I sat down to renew my work, and my brain, that chattering monkey mind, wouldn't shut up for one second. Plan, plan, plan. Row, row, row. Enamored with its own frenetic activity. I made meditation just one more task on my to-do list, one more way that I would prove myself the better person, force myself into the mold of accomplishment and success that I had made for myself. It didn't work. So what's a slacker contemplative to do?

Current Events, Featured, Holy Wild

#Occupy as a Work of Art

Alison Leigh Lilly

It's easy to think of the poet as the dreamer and visionary, protected from the noise of common society, fiercely guarding the sacred solitude in which she does her work. It's easy to imagine the peacemaker and political activist as the motivated mover and shaker, always busy, always at work on a plan to influence those in power and change the world. These ideals have often been at odds in my own heart as I've struggled to understand my place in society and how best I can live my life as a member of the world community. When the poet and peacemaker act together, not as opposites but as allies, the creative work that results can change the world in unexpected ways.

Contemplation & Meditation, Featured, Holy Wild

Why Druidry? Revisited

Alison Leigh Lilly

To me, Druidry will always be a kind of mysticism or mystery religion, a spiritual path grounded in the ecstasy, creativity and vision that takes root in wildness. As a religion, modern Druidry has grown up around the archetype of the Druid as the wise sage, the inspired poet, the bright-eyed seer and the lover of nature. That archetype of the Druid is the acorn from which the oak of Druidry as a religion grows and expands, reaching limbs in all directions, sending down roots deep into the earth and the present moment. The Druid archetype is the ideal that helps to shape and guide the religious lives of those who practice Druidry — just as the acorn contains within itself the genetic patterns necessary to create the mature oak, and yet each oak itself must draw nutrients from its immediate environment and will grow in its turn to fit its own place and time. No two oaks that grow in the wild will be the same, and that process of growth is never-ending as each new branch, twig, leaf and root seek their own way towards sunlight and soil.

Featured, Holy Wild, Nature Photography

Late Summer Outdoor Altar

Alison Leigh Lilly

A few days ago, our landlord and his son asked us to clear our tiny front porch area while they worked on stripping and repainting the ceiling. Usually we have a small table set out front with a few candles and the odds-and-ends the kids bring back with them from the woods. We don't always do a great job of maintaining this outdoor altar, especially during the cold months of snow and ice... But today, I needed some spiritual down-time to ground in the textures and scents of the earth and replenish my soul a bit. Our landlord's home improvement project seemed a perfect excuse to revisit our outdoor altar with fresh eyes.

Contemplation & Meditation, Featured, Holy Wild

30 Days of Druidry

Alison Leigh Lilly

During the month of August, while work and wedding preparation take me away from my usual writing, I've decided to use this "30 Days of Druidry" meme as a way to spark some free associative, poetic musings to share here on this blog. This meme is based loosely on the "30 Days of Paganism" meme that was making its way around the blogosphere last year. How it works is simple: each day, write about your thoughts and experiences on how the day's topic fits into your spiritual tradition or path. You can use the day's topic as a jumping-off point for creative writing, or take a more straight-forward approach by writing essays or journal entries. You can also adapt the list of topics to suit your own tradition, though part of the fun is seeing what others have to share on topics that everyone is writing about together.