In the stillness arises
motion, deep
unbidden (by consciousness) and
in unknown directions

the wind tugs
at body, heart,
mind, as a child
tugs on the wrist –
“come this way!
come quickly!
look!
see what I’ve found!”
And like a grown-up,
I resist
I’m busy
I’m uninterested
I’m preoccupied

Body-rush of adrenaline
- there is fear here -
stay away!

Mind-clatter of distraction:
keep focused here…
keep focused on this…

Heart-longing of freedom
(but what of judgment?
what of worth?)

And this chariot roars on,
ever on towards its Work
- whether road is of dust
or of asphalt
or of mud or of stone -
the fiery driver himself
driven away from, what?
driven faster towards, where?
Can I pull these disparate forces,
fighting wildly within my form,
inward to a place of love?
outward into forward momentum?
together, into blessed union?
the lust after battle?
the serpent adorned with wings?

The wind whispers its answer,
tugging, and tugging still:
The Chariot roars onward,
and ever will…
and ever will…

Copyright Jonah Dove, 2011. Written for Brigid Poetry Festival 2011.

If you have been reading for a while, you might remember that the first post on this blog was about gratitude. It’s been some time, since then. I haven’t blogged as much as I could have (though I have some plans for a long series of upcoming posts, so watch out!). But I’m not worried about that. I’m grateful!

Gratitude is one of the most touted and built-up subjects in a wide variety of spiritual paths and traditions. But, you know, other than “be grateful!” and the occasional admonition to write lists of things you are grateful for, I haven’t seen much on how we are expected to cultivate a sense of gratitude in ourselves. How do you grow something like that when you’re living in such an ungrateful world, when everyone around you has an overblown sense of entitlement, and when maybe it’s just not your natural inclination?

So I decided to take a radical approach. I decided to grab gratitude and pull it in for a big, sloppy kiss. The result of that is The Radical Gratitude Experiment!

I invite you to join me for this experiment. It’s a unique class, and a unique opportunity to crack open the doorway to your own potential for feeling, expressing, and living in thanks. It’s not tradition- or even religion-specific. It’s a celebration of life, joy, love, and the surprising and uncanny powers of gratitude.

I hope that you’ll join me! You’ll be thankful you did

For more information, click here.

an invocation, of sorts
by Jonah Dove

Tonight we celebrate the Lord of Light’s return
though we know he never left
but was only hidden from our sight.
We know he never left us,
though his power was drawn within.
Tonight we draw it outward,
we allow the darkness to wane.
We open the portals of light
that shine within our hearts
and shine within our spirits
and shine throughout our Triple Souls.

Return to us, Light Bearer!
We await your glowing dawn!
Return to us, Light Bringer!
We await your warmth, renewed!
Return to us, Shining Angel!
Bring blessing to the Earth!

And may each of us be blessed.
And may each of us be blessing.
And may we turn toward the Sun each morning,
as the Wheel turns to herald your blessed return.

Love and laughter to all for the remainder of this holiday season. May we all find what we need and grown into the fullness of our greatest potential.

Things have been in flux in every area of my life, including my personal space. So it’s easy to look at my altar and think that it’s not exactly where I want it to be, it’s not set with the things I’ll need, there are clothes I left on the floor where I’d like to put my cushion. It’s easy to turn away and find some distraction to substitute for the calming effects of the breathing work, the centering effects of grounding practice, the deepening effects of sitting meditation. But, whatever I might find, they are poor substitutes. And they don’t last long.

And this morning, I felt that, in addition to the I-don’t-wannas, I just could face the sheer effort involved. Because let’s be honest – the physical and mental actions required of a daily practice are very simple and usually very easy, but the actual practice is anything but. What could be easier than placing a few things on a table? Or filling a glass of water? Or lighting a candle? How hard is it, really, to say a prayer? To sit still for a several minutes? To imagine a few lights and colors?

All of those things are easy, taken individually. But it’s the combination that is a challenge. Because when arranging things on a table is really setting an altar, you have to question what you want to bring to your life today. When pouring a glass of water is really a spell of internal cleansing and alchemy, you have to confront those things you’ve allowed to hold you back. And when lighting a candle is really inviting in the Gods…

But as I attempted to seek out hollow distractions, something in me was craving spiritual practice. I had a brief yet potent vision. It was a simple image, but one that means so much to me it could not be ignored. The image was a pentacle.

In my Elemental Tools class, I like to say that the pentacle asks us: “Where do you stand? Are you willing to start from here?”

The altar isn’t set. Can I set it? There are clothes on the floor. Can’t they be picked up? I just don’t want to practice. Can I bring that to my practice with me?

I can, and I will. Because the difficulty of practice, when it is difficult, makes choosing practice that much more powerful.

(And sometimes… practice is easy!)

I had intended to post this poem yesterday, but, apparently, I spaced. I think a poem is a good way to start the week, don’t you? So here is a poem I wrote to be read as a grounding meditation. I hope you enjoy it.

Grounding Poem
by Jonah Dove

You sit tenderly here –
close your eyes
– and what do you see?
What do you see?

A gentle root growing
as if from a tree,

reaching down, reaching down
through the damp, dark ground,
towards the heart of the mother –
resting deep, resting sound.

You feel warmth waiting here –
take it in
– and what do you see?
What do you see?

A bright glowing orange,
a molten hot sea.

Pull it up, pull it in
through your root, through your skin
and fill up with this iron,
like the iron within.

You sit here, enflamed –
feel your heat
– and what do you see?
What do you see?

A strong branch growing,
as if from a tree!

Reaching up, reaching higher
towards a heavenly fire
through the air, and through vacuum,
starlight, its desire.

You touch now a star –
so, so bright!
– and what do you see?
What do you see?

Radiant power
shines infinitely!

Bring it here, bring it down
where it touches your crown
and surrounds you with starlight,
a bright, glowing gown.

And again, here you sit –
be centered
– and what do you see?
What do you see?

These two powers merging
most radiantly!

Bring them in, let them shine,
in your heart now entwined,
and flow out in this space
to make all things Divine!

Now open your eyes –
breathe deep
– and what do you see?
What do you see?

Blessed be, friends, and may that divine light always radiate from your Shining Heart.

I put a lot of stock in the power of the traditional tools of the Craft to encode and – with time, effort, and meditation – reveal sacred mysteries. Mostly I’m referring to the Elemental Tools: the Wand, Athame, Cup, and Pentacle. Of course there are more, varying by tradition, but these are the four I resonate with most and they are quite common. There is a fifth, extremely common magical tool – shared by most (if not all) Craft traditions, and, indeed, world religions – which is sometimes taken for granted: the Altar.

It’s at the altar where these life changes occur. The altar is where I can bring these changes to examine them and frame them within my spiritual landscape, along with those things that feel stuck, steady, strong, weak, out of control, too big, or too small. The altar is where I can pray for guidance around any of these things. Because the altar is the place where I have access to my center, the Gods, and all the powers of creation.

At the very least, an altar can be seen as a place to do spiritual work. I’d venture a guess that most religious people (consciously or not) view it as a sort of interface point between humanity and divinity. I see it as the hub of the universe – the place where the four elements meet with the active and passive polarities of spirit. A sacred place, indeed.

But there’s another mystery in the altar – an individual mystery for each of us to contemplate. And that is: what you put on your altar, you put on your life. By placing anything on an altar, by any of the above definitions, you are affording it sacred attention. Divine attention.

Yesterday I asked myself a question that I try to revisit every now and again. It’s a question I invite you to ask of yourself, if you find you are brave enough.

What is on the altar of my life?

Considering the magnitude of my last month in this life, that question seems far weightier than usual to me. What IS on the altar of my life? What am I giving that divine attention to? What am I spending my energy on? And does that align with what I profess to hold sacred and important? Does that expended energy propel me towards my goals, or is it spent holding me back?

• How many times did I look at my phone yesterday to check Twitter or Facebook? And how many times did I check in with spirit?
• How many hours a week do I spend watching television? Not that many, really, but am I more devoted to catching my favorite shows than doing The Work of This God?
• How much “entertainment” do I consume? How much art do I create?
• How many silly wants do I chase after? How many true needs of the world do I rise up to meet?
• How often do I give fear the honored place on the altar? How often do I instead put courage there and take real action?

There is nothing wrong with putting fear on the altar. Sometimes fear needs divine attention. But do I pray to the fear, or do I pray to face and overcome it? Do I use social networking to build connections and relationships, or to feel social while distancing myself from anything real? Do I use entertainment to relax and rejuvenate, or to deaden and forget? Sometimes the answer to each of these questions is “Yes.”

The great thing about an altar is that, really, it’s a table. It’s a special table, sure, but it’s a table, nonetheless. It can be cleared. It can be cleaned. It can be set anew. And in the same way, we can each clear off the altars of our lives and choose what goes back on them. What do I want to give my attention to? What do I need to give my attention to? And what drains to my energy and attention can I sacrifice to make more room for those things that really matter to me?

Blessed be.

P.S. I’ll be recording a guided meditation from my Elemental Tools class soon, hopefully within the next week or so, around this topic. I will post it on this blog when it’s ready, so check back for it.

So as that day passes, I will share with you the farewell blessing I read to the spirits last night in the spirit of a ritual of poetry. I hope you enjoy it.

Goodnight, Spirits
by Jonah Dove, Beltane 2010

This night has been most blessed,
and we bless you in return.
Take our blessings with you,
as we take what we have learned.
Goodnight, you sweet, sweet Faeries –
to your sideways realms, away.
Goodnight, you Gods of power –
stay in our prayers each day.
Goodnight, you mighty Angels –
your protection has been felt.
Goodnight, you Guides and Spirits –
we appreciate your help.

As the night is turning colder,
not one of us can stay.
But we know we we’ll meet you every year,
on the blessed Beltane day.

I hope you, too, had a blessed Beltane, and that the coming summer has many more blessings to offer us all.

I hope you enjoy it!

World’s Turning
by Jonah Dove

Here I sit
silent. waiting.
A center, they say, around which the
whole world turns.

Watch me stand
and stretch. and walk.
It is you who moves
- not me -
the whole world turns.

I drink and dance and play with you.
Your heart beats only because mine
tells it to.
You are my dream,
here in my head, where the
whole world turns.

One day, if I’m lucky
- and usually, I am -
I’ll catch your eye just right
or give birth to you one night
or get moved, so, by your plight
or meet you in delight.
And see
in my waiting
a center (they say) in you.
A foreign place
around which my
whole world turns inside out.

My experience with this sort of difficultly, and my conversations with others who have been struggling, has shown me that it often arises from a fundamental flaw in the way we approach the practice. I call it “Checklist Spirituality.”

Let’s say you make a commitment to yourself (or your teacher, if you have one) to engage in a specific set of practices every day. So you make yourself a list. I’m going to say these prayers, sit in meditation for this long, and do visualization X and energy work Y. Sounds doable, right? And for a while, it is. For a while, it’s more than doable – it’s refreshing! It’s delicious! It’s rewarding! “Oh,” you think to yourself, “it feels so GOOD to do this work. I can really tell how much more centered I am. I can really feel myself engaging with life in a different way!”

After a while, though, this feeling of newness wanes. It becomes harder to live up to our commitment. We start to grow complacent. If we’re able to be disciplined, we might still work through our checklist, but it’s become a chore. It’s become a bore!

The problem here is that we’ve disengaged. Instead of really working our practice, we’ve turned it into another to-do list. Did I sit? Check. Say my prayers? Check. Perform a cleansing? Check. Well, guess what. Check marks do not a spiritual practice make.

What are the fundamental practices in your spiritual tradition? What are the basic principles that you are called to return to? If you can identify what those fundamental practices are, I can give you a clue about making them more effective: Even if you’ve done these things a million times, there is still more to be learned from them! The basic practices ARE the advanced practices. They each have layers of influence and meaning. They can each touch you on deeper and deeper levels, if you’ll allow them to.

And that is the key word: Allow.

Magic is not something we do. It is something we allow to move through us. It is something we are.

Yes: there are things we must do to make way for that to happen.
Yes: there are things we must study, exercises we must do, training we must engage in.
Yes: we must learn to hone our will, become present, move from stillness.

But mostly we need to get out of our own way. Our most basic practices, which we return to again and again, are designed to bring all of our parts together towards the same purpose (our True Will, the Work of this God), remove internal and external obstacles, remind us that we are connected to everything, and get us to a place – in body, heart, mind, and spirit – from which we can do what we need to do. The main thing to remember is to show up. If you can’t do your work, just take one step. Sit down, be quiet, start breathing. See what happens.

What’s likely to happen? Magic will move through you. Give it time – you will feel a shift. You will know what needs to be done.

And if you don’t, look to your tradition and I’ll bet you find some answers. Are you feeling flighty, unfocused, frazzled, or drained? That’s what grounding is for. Are you feeling lost or confused? That’s what divination is for. There are reasons for each little rite, every cleansing, every Tarot spread, every exercise, every protection charm, every enchantment, every healing, every spell. Which one will help you now? Engage with it. Allow it to change you.

This is one of the reasons we go through all of our study, do all of our exercises, and do things like set altars and make offerings. Each of these things gives us a chance to open up and shift our consciousness towards something closer to our ideal. Seeing your altar as you walk by it is an opportunity to remember your practice and your relationship with your Gods. Going through the grounding meditation over and over again sets up a mental pathway so that you can access that power when you need it to feel more calm, focused, or strong. We form these connections which lie dormant, waiting for us to remember that we have them at our disposal.

In this moment, we can open up. In this moment, we can shift. In this moment, we can show up to our practice and let the practice do us.

The thing is, in the Craft, that’s not so much of an issue. I’m sure there are differing views on this, but, as I understand it, there is no judgment day at the end of life or at the end of the world.* There’s just another bend on the cycle. And whether the other side of that bend finds me still being “me” or not is of little consequence.

So, then, what is spiritual practice for? Specifically in the Witch’s worldview, but also more generally – from wherever you are standing. Many people would agree that the point is to be “a better person,” whatever we mean by that. My understanding is that the point is to help us become more authentic, more centered, more able, more effective. What good is my practice if it doesn’t help to align me with my True Will, my divine nature – that part of me which knows why I am here and what I want to accomplish – so that I can do what I am here to do in the most effective way possible. Whether you believe that what you are here to do is an assignment from God or just the whim of your particular bag of flesh, why would you want to be anything less than successful at it?

Witchcraft is about relationship. Who am I? Who are the Gods? Who makes up my communities in location, family, friends, peer groups, religion, ancestry, ecology, economy, spirit, and so on? I don’t know about you, but I do my work to better understand myself and where I fit into the many (many) groups to which I belong, by choice or by circumstance. It’s about making allies, being cooperative, and coming together in ways that produce mutual benefit instead of mutual harm.

And at this, you might say I’ve failed again and again. You might say we all have. I know that I’ve picked stupid fights with people I love. I’ve sought revenge over something petty. I’ve neglected to call people. I’ve offered lame excuses to get out of obligations. And again and again, I’ve let my practice slide, allowed myself to tilt off balance, let the internal grime build up until I couldn’t see through my clogged-up filters.

What to do when we suddenly wake up and say, “Oh, man. How’d I let myself get here?”

It’s so easy to slip into guilt. Because we have this “goal” and it’s off in the distance and if we don’t stick to the path we’ll never “get there.” Because we know we’ll never be “perfect” but gods damn it, I could have been better! Bring on the guilt! Let’s beat ourselves up for not trying hard enough! Let’s look at all of our tools lying on the floor in disarray, collecting dust, and instead of picking them up and cleaning them off and putting them back to use, we can lament over all of the work we haven’t done yet!

Yes! Guilt! Woo hoo! It’s so much FUN! But let’s be honest… guilt is just one more way to put things off. It’s one more way for us to disconnect. It’s one more excuse to not even try.

It’s likely that if you feel guilty about “failing” at your spiritual practice you are also baiting yourself with some unrealistic goal that simply doesn’t exist. Even if you are working towards attaining a specific skill, you haven’t failed because you can always start again. Are you imposing a phantom timeline on your work? There’s probably no quarterly earnings report that you have to worry about here. Is it really appropriate to be so upset that you made a choice to better your life and then didn’t get very far? Why not make the choice again, instead. Why not evaluate where you are today and take the next step from there. Sometimes this means starting over, and even that is nothing to feel ashamed of. There’s a reason we call it “practice.”

Even if you really can’t start again, for whatever reason, you are still presented with the opportunity to live in full authenticity, in dynamic balance, and in right relationship to the people, spirits, animals, and things around you. Because the big secret is: your goal is right here. There is no journey that leads anywhere but deeper into yourself. Your aim isn’t to be a “better person” someday. It’s to define what being a better person is for you, and to be that now. It’s a challenge to remember that and to be present enough in each moment to make the effort. But the challenge is not insurmountable. Each breath can be your reminder.

Breathe in:    I am here.
Breathe out:    I change the world.
Breathe in:    I take what I need.
Breathe out:    I give it back.
Breathe in:    I am alive.
Breathe out:    I am connected.

I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t take our practice seriously, or that we should let ourselves off the hook by saying “well, I can just start again tomorrow.” No. Instead, we can let each moment house our practice. We can let each breath bring us back to presence. And with each exhalation, we can let go of any guilt for having not tried harder, for having not done our best, for having slipped into complacency.

* There are, of course, myths that speak of a judgment at the end of life. One I am definitely familiar with, as a devotee of Thoth. Perhaps I will revisit this topic someday. For now, I’ll just say that my suspicion is that these myths – like all myths – can be interpreted at face value, or they can be keys to a deeper understanding of mystery.

Next time: Letting Practice Do You